Preliminary Hearing - July 7, 1994

0001
01 IN THE MUNICIPAL COURT OF LOS ANGELES JUDICIAL DISTRICT
02 COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES, STATE OF CALIFORNIA
03 HON. KATHLEEN KENNEDY-POWELL, JUDGE DEPARTMENT 105
04 THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, ) NO. BA097211
04 )
05 PLAINTIFF, )
05 )
06 VS. ) VOLUME 10
06 )
07 )
07 ORENTHAL JAMES SIMPSON, )
08 AKA O.J. SIMPSON, )
08 )
09 )
09 DEFENDANT. )
10 _______________________________________)
10
11
11
12 REPORTER'S TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS
12
13 THURSDAY, JULY 7, 1994
13
14
14
15 APPEARANCES:
15
16 FOR THE PLAINTIFF: MARCIA CLARK
16 WILLIAM HODGMAN
17 DEPUTIES DISTRICT ATTORNEY
17
18
18
19 FOR THE DEFENDANT: ROBERT SHAPIRO
19 GERALD UELMEN
20 PRIVATELY RETAINED COUNSEL
20
21
21
22
22
23 SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES
23
24
24
25
25
26
26 ARNELLA I. SIMS, CSR #2896
27 ROBERT GUNN, CSR #1539
27 OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS
28
0002
01 I N D E X
01 VOIR
02 PEOPLE'S WITNESS(ES): DIRECT CROSS REDIRECT RECROSS DIRE
02
03 TOM LANGE 15 40 76 86
03
04 88
04
05
05 PHILLIP VANNATTER 90 107
06
06
07
07 -O0O-
08
08
09 EXHIBITS
09
10
10 PEOPLE'S EXHIBIT(S): FOR IDENTIFICATION
11
11 5 - SERIES OF PHOTOS 18
12 (WITHDRAWN)
12
13 5 - PHOTO 18
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14 10 - PHOTO 25
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15 11 - PHOTO 26
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16 12 - PHOTO 27
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17 13 - PHOTO 27
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18 14 - PHOTO 28
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19 15 - PHOTO 28
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20 16 - PHOTO 29
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21 17 - PHOTO 30
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22 18 - PHOTO 32
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23 19 - SERIES OF PHOTOS 33
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24 20 - SERIES OF PHOTOS 33
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25 21 - PHOTO 92
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26 22 - PHOTO 96
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27 23 - SERIES OF PHOTOS 104
27
0003
01 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
02 THURSDAY, JULY 7, 1994
03 9:02 A.M.
04 -O0O-
05
06 THE COURT: Good morning.
07 MR. SHAPIRO: Good morning, Your Honor.
08 MS. CLARK: Good morning Your Honor.
09 MR. HODGMAN: Good morning, Your Honor.
10 MR. UELMEN: Good morning, Your Honor.
11 THE COURT: We are once again on the record in
12 People versus Simpson.
13 The defendant is present with counsel, the
14 people are represented.
15 First of all, before announcing the ruling
16 with regard to the 1538.5 motion, I'd just like to say
17 that both attorneys, both sides in this case, did an
18 excellent presentation, for which the court is
19 grateful. And you both gave me quite a bit to think
20 about during the last several hours.
21 The key issue for the Court's determination is
22 whether the warrantless entry into the property on
23 Rockingham and recovery of certain items and physical
24 evidence was justified in light of exigent
25 circumstances.
26 And this is really a gray area of the law. I
27 mean, there's no set formula to establish when or --
28 when an exigent circumstance does exist and when it
0004
01 doesn't. And it's really something that has to be
02 decided on a case by case basis based upon the evidence
03 that's actually questioned in the hearing.
04 There were numerous cases cited by the
05 prosecution as well as by the defense. The court has
06 reviewed all of those cases.
07 The court also found an additional case that I
08 did not see cited by either the prosecution or the
09 defense which, although not identical to the
10 circumstances in this case, is more similar than most of
11 the other cases. And that case is People versus Cain,
12 c-a-i-n, at 216 Cal.App.3d 366, a case decided in
13 December of 1989.
14 In that particular matter, the situation was
15 that there was a woman who had been beaten and raped in
16 a certain apartment. The officers went to that
17 location, observed her. Through the common wall they
18 could hear music coming from the next apartment over and
19 could see that lights were on, and it was early in the
20 morning.
21 The officers knocked on the door, received no
22 answer, and made a determination in their own minds that
23 they felt that there could indeed be an additional
24 victim in the adjacent apartment.
25 The door was unlocked and they entered that
26 apartment. They later found the defendant passed out
27 on the floor intoxicated and recovered physical
28 evidence, including blood stains and clothing, that
0005
01 eventually tied that particular defendant to the crime
02 for which he was later convicted.
03 The court upheld the warrantless entry into
04 that apartment, and the language in that case the Court
05 finds particularly helpful in this particular matter.
06 "The court indicates that due weight
07 must be given, not to the unparticularized
08 suspicions or hunches of the police
09 officers involved, but to the reasonable
10 inference which he -- " or she -- "is
11 entitled to draw from the facts in light
12 of his -- " or her -- "experience."
13 Additionally, that court places a limitation,
14 which other courts indeed have recognized, which is that
15 "the search involved must be strictly circumscribed by
16 the exigencies which justify its initiation."
17 Let's consider the evidence in this case.
18 And basically the evidence that was presented in this
19 matter is, for the most part, uncontroverted with regard
20 to the search.
21 We know from the evidence that was presented
22 that the detectives in this matter -- Vannatter,
23 Fuhrman, Lange and Phillips, I believe -- started out at
24 the crime scene on Bundy.
25 They made the observations of the two dead
26 bodies, the blood, the glove, the footprints, and the
27 droplets of blood leading away from that location.
28 There's no dispute as to what they saw there at Bundy.
0006
01 There's also no dispute that there were two
02 small children who apparently were asleep inside that
03 particular location at the time of the incident itself,
04 and that those small children were taken to the police
05 station.
06 Notwithstanding suggestions to the contrary
07 during cross-examination, the place for two small
08 children whose mother has been murdered is not at the
09 police station, sitting in a corner drawing pictures on
10 a tablet. The place for those kids is with their
11 family.
12 The detectives testified that they were
13 concerned about those children and wanted to make
14 arrangements with regard to those children. The person
15 who is the next of kin to those children is the
16 defendant. He's their father. He is the person that
17 logically would be the one that would be called upon to
18 take action, to take custody of those children.
19 So I don't find anything improper in terms of
20 the police conduct, with the idea that they were going
21 to go to the Simpson home.
22 One might say, "well, why didn't they just
23 call?" Well, apparently they didn't have the phone
24 number to the Simpson home. We learned that through
25 the testimony, that they had to get Westec security to
26 come actually out to the location to try to get that
27 phone number.
28 So they go to the Simpson home, which
0007
01 apparently is only some two miles away and a short car
02 ride. They get to the gate. And here again, it seems
03 to me that they really do extraordinary things to try to
04 make contact with the persons inside.
05 I mean, the testimony was that they rang that
06 bell for some 15 minutes to try to rouse somebody from
07 within the house. They could hear that phone ringing
08 from out at the gate. There's no response.
09 But what do they see? And this apparently is
10 uncontroverted in light of the testimony that was
11 presented. There's a light on upstairs, there's a
12 light on downstairs. There's several vehicles in the
13 driveway. A suggestion that there are persons inside.
14 But then there's more, and of course this is
15 the crucial piece of evidence, but it by itself without
16 all of the other surroundings circumstances would not be
17 enough.
18 But what the officers say while they're
19 shuffling around for these 15 minutes trying to get in
20 touch with someone inside the house is that they see
21 blood, what they believed to be blood, on the door
22 handle or near the door handle of this white Bronco, a
23 white Bronco that is parked on a public street where the
24 officers have a right to be.
25 And the court sees no problem with the
26 observing or recovery of the blood sample from the door
27 of the Bronco.
28 So seeing what they believed to be blood, and
0008
01 having seen droplets of blood leading away from the
02 location, the officers even now are doing more to get in
03 touch with the people inside. They're calling Westec
04 security who, apparently, dispatches at least one if not
05 two vehicles to the location and eventually give the
06 police the telephone number.
07 What they get at that point is an answering
08 machine. They feel -- and the testimony of both
09 officers was that they felt that there was an emergency
10 situation.
11 The officers are cross-examined in length,
12 both by Mr. Uelmen of the initial officer, and by
13 Mr. Shapiro of detective Vannatter. And both lawyers,
14 defense lawyers in this case, did an excellent job on
15 cross-examination.
16 But when one looks at the results of that
17 cross-examination, basically there were really no holes
18 put in either of those detectives' testimonies, that
19 they felt they were acting in an emergency situation at
20 the time.
21 Again, I go back to that language in Cain.
22 "The search must be strictly circumscribed by the
23 exigencies which justify its initiation."
24 This would be a very easy decision for me if
25 in fact these officers went in there like storm
26 troopers, fanning out over the property, examining every
27 leaf, every car, every closet, every nook and cranny of
28 this location.
0009
01 But the testimony as elicited by the officers,
02 and as supported by the witnesses that testified on
03 behalf of the defense, show that this was not what
04 happened.
05 What the testimony was is that the officers
06 went in search of persons on the property. they went
07 to the guest quarters of Mr. Kaelin, woke him up.
08 Now, someone might say, "well, what are they
09 doing looking at those tennis shoes?" Well, they
10 didn't know what the situation was.
11 They knew there were bloody footprints that
12 led away from that location, and there was blood on this
13 vehicle that somehow was tied in or could be tied into
14 that, so they pick up the tennis shoes.
15 There's no blood on the shoes, but they don't
16 start searching under beds, searching drawers, they
17 don't handcuff Mr. Kaelin. They don't do anything like
18 that.
19 Instead, what they do is they ask him if
20 there's other persons on the property. And where do
21 they go? He directs them to Arnelle Simpson's
22 quarters, apparently further down that pathway.
23 Now, Arnelle Simpson testified the officers
24 didn't ask her whether there was anyone hurt or injured
25 or a suicide or something like that going on. But what
26 did Arnelle Simpson tell us?
27 She told us that while she was walking into
28 that house, taking a path to the front door and opening
0010
01 it with a key, the officers asked her about the live-in
02 maid.
03 Again, we have to judge the officers' conduct
04 and the exigency, if there was one, not based upon --
05 not what all of us know today, but based upon what the
06 officers knew at the time.
07 And the information that they had been
08 provided by Westec security was that there was a live-in
09 maid at the location. Additionally, Westec security
10 advised them that they had not been informed that there
11 was going to be a vacation or an absence of the
12 residents from that location.
13 We know now, obviously, that there was no
14 dying person or injured person on the property of the
15 Simpson estate at that time. We know that all the
16 persons who were supposed to be there were accounted
17 for.
18 Mr. Simpson was in Chicago. Mr. Kaelin was
19 in his quarters. Ms. Arnelle Simpson had been out and
20 returned about 1:00 o'clock in the morning. And Gigi,
21 the maid, was on her night off.
22 But the officers didn't know that at the
23 time. So their immediate question, "where's the maid,"
24 and a quick sort of cursory look around the area of the
25 maid's room once they get into the house, again, seems
26 to me, was conduct "that was strictly circumscribed by
27 the exigencies which justified its initiation," the
28 language from that case.
0011
01 Now, what happened once the officers got into
02 the house? What happened was they got on the
03 telephone. They did exactly what they said they were
04 there to do, which is to make arrangements for those
05 children.
06 Cathy Randa was called. Mr. Simpson was
07 located and contacted in Chicago. Apparently
08 Mr. Cowlings was contacted. Nicole Brown's parents
09 were contacted. This is exactly what they said they
10 were there to do, and that's what they did.
11 There is some suggestion -- although I'm not
12 sure that it's clear from the record -- that at some
13 point in time Arnelle Simpson apparently left the
14 location in order to get the children, presumably
15 leaving the police there at the scene, although it's
16 really -- that part of it is not clear to me.
17 There's no indication at any point in time
18 that the officers were told that they should leave,
19 they were not welcome there.
20 Ms. Arnelle Simpson was apparently so upset --
21 and justifiably so -- by the circumstances of which she
22 was informed that she couldn't even talk on the phone
23 and explain to those persons that she was calling what
24 had happened.
25 And the only other thing really that went on
26 while the officers were there at that time, that portion
27 of the testimony, was that they talked to Mr. Kaelin.
28 "Did anything unusual happen around here last night?"
0012
01 And we know from Mr. Kaelin's testimony that
02 there was a loud, jarring, banging on the wall in his
03 guest quarters, one that scared him, that he didn't know
04 the origin of, that he had mentioned to several other
05 persons but had never really investigated himself.
06 So the officers have that information from
07 Mr. Kaelin, and detective Fuhrman walks down that
08 path. He doesn't go anywhere else on the property.
09 Officers make no attempt to go upstairs. They don't
10 start opening cupboards, lifting up carpets, opening
11 vehicles.
12 He goes down that path to the area
13 approximately adjacent to the air conditioner where that
14 noise was seen in (sic) and the picture jarred from the
15 wall and finds a glove, a glove that appears to be the
16 apparent mate to the glove found at the crime scene.
17 And at that point he describes that he walked
18 down toward the end of the path to see where it would
19 lead, looking to see whether he would find a body there,
20 and that's sort of what he expected to find, according
21 to his testimony.
22 He then takes the other detectives one at a
23 time to that location and shows them the glove as well.
24 Contrary to the suggestions in the defense
25 argument that this ruling allowing the officers'
26 conduct -- or finding that it was reasonable and there
27 were exigent circumstances -- would mean the end of the
28 Fourth Amendment and Constitution and anarchy, I
0013
01 disagree.
02 And I think one only needs to look as far as
03 the fact that within a short time after that glove was
04 discovered, that the officers did in fact obtain a
05 search warrant and apparently many other items of
06 evidence were recovered, none of which are going to be
07 offered during the course of this particular proceeding.
08 So in my mind, the Fourth Amendment is alive
09 and well. It is recognized. It's nothing new,
10 nothing novel that I'm coming up with here, that there
11 are exigent circumstances that on occasion justify a
12 warrantless entry and a limited search.
13 And this, it appears to the court, is what
14 occurred in this particular case based upon, as I
15 indicated, not only the testimony of the officers as to
16 what their state of mind was, but the specific actions
17 that they took which show, in fact, that that indeed was
18 their state of mind.
19 And they are entitled to, and the court is
20 entitled to give weight to, the experience of those
21 officers in drawing their conclusions. And what we
22 learn about those officers is that, I think one had 19
23 or so years of experience and Vannatter over 25 years of
24 experience, an elite homicide unit, and all of that can
25 be taken into account.
26 The Court finds that they were in fact acting
27 for a benevolent purpose in light of the brutal attack,
28 and that a delay -- and that they reasonably believed
0014
01 that a further delay could have resulted in the
02 unnecessary loss of life.
03 And, therefore, the court denies the defense
04 motion to suppress and will allow the introduction into
05 evidence of the glove that was recovered and of the
06 spattered blood spots that were located on the driveway
07 once the sun came up, as well as the blood stain from
08 the Bronco which was in plain view on a public street.
09 Miss Clark, do you have an additional witness
10 to call at this time?
11 MS. CLARK: Yes, Your Honor, I do.
12 If I may inquire of the defense when they
13 wanted to have Mr. Kaelin re-take the stand to complete
14 cross-examination.
15 MR. SHAPIRO: Your Honor, we have no objection to
16 excusing Mr. Kaelin from these proceedings.
17 THE COURT: All right. So you are not asking that
18 he be recalled at this time?
19 MR. SHAPIRO: No, we're not. Thank you.
20 THE COURT: All right.
21 MS. CLARK: There will be no further
22 cross-examination?
23 THE COURT: That was the indication.
24 MS. CLARK: Thank you, Your Honor.
25 The people call detective Tom Lange.
26
27
28 \ \
0015
01 THE CLERK: Please raise your right hand.
02 You do solemnly swear the testimony you may
03 give in the cause now pending before this court shall be
04 the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so
05 help you God?
06 THE WITNESS: I do.
07
08 TOM LANGE,
09 called as a witness by and on behalf of the People,
10 having been duly sworn, was examined and testified as
11 follows:
12 THE CLERK: Please be seated.
13 State and spell your name for the record.
14 THE WITNESS: Tom Lange. L-a-n-g-e, also known as
15 Frederick Lange.
16 THE COURT: You may inquire.
17 MS. CLARK: Thank you, Your Honor.
18
19 DIRECT EXAMINATION
20
21 BY MS. CLARK:
22 Q Detective Lange, would you please tell us what
23 you do for a living, sir.
24 A I'm a police detective for the City of
25 Los Angeles, assigned to Robbery Homicide Division,
26 homicide special section.
27 Q How long have you been a police officer, sir?
28 A 27 years in October.
0016
01 Q And how long have you been assigned to Robbery
02 Homicide Division, homicide special?
03 A I've been assigned to that unit since November
04 of 1978.
05 Q How many homicides have you investigated over
06 the entire course of your career?
07 A I can give you an approximation. Homicides
08 that I've been directly assigned or investigations that
09 I've been a part of, probably between 250 and 300.
10 Q Now, in robbery homicide, homicide special,
11 how many cases have you handled overall? Just an
12 estimate.
13 A Well, again, it would be open to
14 interpretation. There have been serial killings, there
15 have been mass killings. If these are individual or --
16 I don't know. It would have to be over 200.
17 Q Sir, were you assigned as one of the
18 investigating officers in the case now pending before
19 this court?
20 A Yes.
21 Q And how did that come about?
22 A I was awakened approximately 3:00 a.m. on
23 Monday, June 13th, at home.
24 Q And what did you do when you got that call?
25 A I had received information that there was a
26 double homicide at 875 south Bundy, the West Los Angeles
27 area, and so I responded to that location, arriving
28 approximately 4:30 a.m.
0017
01 Q Is that Brentwood of Los Angeles County, sir?
02 A Yes.
03 Q Now, by the time you arrived, were other
04 officers already present?
05 A Yes.
06 Q And was the scene secured in some manner?
07 A Yes. The scene was secured by police yellow
08 marker tape, as well as by uniformed patrol officers.
09 Q If you would, sir, could you please describe
10 the building -- well, strike that.
11 Did you see the apparent victims in this case
12 when you arrived at the scene?
13 A Yes.
14 Q Did someone lead you through a path that would
15 avoid disturbing evidence to do so?
16 A Yes.
17 Q And what was that path?
18 A The path was a walkway running along the north
19 side of the residence, perpendicular to the sidewalk in
20 front.
21 Q And what were you able to see from that
22 vantage point, sir?
23 A On the walkway I observed one victim, Nicole
24 Brown Simpson, lying in a -- on the walkway at the foot
25 of three steps leading up to the front entrance.
26 Q Were you able to see any other victims, sir?
27 A Yes. Just to the north and a little west of
28 the first victim, I observed the second victim,
0018
01 Mr. Goldman, lying beneath a large tree in an area just
02 off the walkway.
03 MS. CLARK: Your Honor, I have here a series of
04 small photographs. I am showing them to counsel.
05 With respect to the first of these
06 photographs, I'm going to ask that it be substituted in
07 lieu of the larger photograph that's been marked on a
08 poster board.
09 THE COURT: And do you recall which number that
10 was?
11 MS. CLARK: I'm going to inform the court.
12 People's 5, Your Honor.
13 If I may withdraw People's 5 and substitute in
14 lieu of that the smaller photograph and mark it as
15 People's 5.
16 THE COURT: Mr. Shapiro, any objection?
17 MR. SHAPIRO: No, Your Honor.
18 THE COURT: All right.
19 MS. CLARK: I believe counsel agrees this is a
20 smaller version of the same one we have previously
21 shown.
22 BY MS. CLARK:
23 Q Showing you People's 5, can you tell me if you
24 recognize what I'm showing you?
25 A Yes. This is the victim, Nicole Brown
26 Simpson, lying in the position that I observed her on
27 the morning of the 13th.
28 Q That is the position that you observed?
0019
01 A Yes.
02 Q And I'm sorry, sir, I didn't hear.
03 Did you tell us that you observed any other
04 victims?
05 A Yes. I observed a second victim,
06 subsequently identified as Mr. Goldman, to the north and
07 just west in the dirt area just off of the walkway
08 beneath a large tree.
09 Q Now, did you have what we call a Walk-through
10 at that scene?
11 A Yes. I was given a walk-through by
12 West Los Angeles homicide detectives.
13 Q And where did you walk?
14 A Initially we walked up to the bodies to the
15 location, and observed them at close range. Some
16 various things were pointed out to me initially by
17 detective Phillips.
18 We then proceeded up the steps towards the
19 front entrance of the home and eventually entered the
20 home. Again, several things were pointed out to me by
21 detective Phillips that he had observed.
22
23
0020
01 Q And when you pointed out -- when he pointed
02 them out to you, did you observe them, sir?
03 A Yes.
04 Q Can you tell us what those items were?
05 A Initially, near Mr. Goldman, there was a white
06 envelope containing what appeared to be prescription
07 glasses. It was lying just off the walkway, in the dirt,
08 between the first and second victims.
09 There appeared to be a dark blue knit cap that
10 was found in the dirt at the feet of Mr. Goldman, the
11 second victim.
12 There was a dark brown leather glove, a
13 left-handed glove, that was also near the feet of
14 Mr. Goldman, near the knit cap.
15 I observed a ring with, I believe, five keys just
16 below the buttocks of Mr. Goldman.
17 I observed a great deal of blood both on and
18 around the area surrounding Mr. Goldman and Miss Simpson.
19 There were what appeared to be paw prints, or
20 animal prints, that had walked through the blood that was
21 draining downwards down the sidewalk in an easterly
22 direction, towards the sidewalk, from nicole Simpson. I
23 observed these animal tracks to go through the blood
24 eastward and then proceed south along Bundy from the
25 location.
26 Additionally, I observed what appeared to be shoe
27 prints -- bloody shoe prints leading from the area of the
28 two victims up the steps and in a westerly direction along
0021
01 the walkway that was along the north side of the
02 residence. They appeared to go directly by the open front
03 door of the residence and continue in a westerly
04 direction. As they progressed, they began to fade towards
05 the rear of the house -- the actual bloody shoe prints
06 did.
07 There appeared to be several blood droplets among
08 these bloody shoe prints leading away westerly from the
09 bodies. These droplets appeared to have landed straight
10 down on the pavement.
11 Q Let me ask you a question, sir.
12 You indicated that you saw bloody shoe prints in
13 an area -- in a direction that appeared to go away from the
14 bodies, towards the rear of the building?
15 A Yes.
16 Q Did you notice any blood drops in that vicinity?
17 A Yes. Again, I did notice several blood drops.
18 Q To what side of the bloody shoe prints?
19 A I believe they were just on the left side, or the
20 south side, for the most part.
21 Q To the south, which would be to the left of the
22 bloody shoe prints?
23 A Yes.
24 Q And if you would, sir, can you describe the
25 nature of the building and the scene as you saw it? In
26 other words, where is the path in relation to the stairs
27 and the landing and the building behind which -- in front
28 of which you found Miss Simpson?
0022
01 A Well, the building itself is a large
02 condominium. It appears to be a duplex, three level.
03 Q If you step up the path, sir, are there -- is
04 there a gate you come to before you would come to the
05 bodies of the victims?
06 A Yes. There is a gate to the east of where the
07 victims were located that I found to be wide open at the
08 time. The gate is serviceable and could be locked from
09 the inside and opened from the inside without a key;
10 however, from the outside one would need a key.
11 Additionally, there is an outside latch that
12 would have to be activated in order to get in after one
13 keyed their way in or someone on the inside would allow
14 them to go in.
15 Q You observed the operation of that gate, I take
16 it, personally?
17 A Yes.
18 Q Is there a way from the inside of the house
19 you can press a button to open the gate electronically?
20 A There is an inside release button, but I could
21 not activate it. To me it was unserviceable at that
22 time.
23 Q And at that time was what time?
24 A Well, the morning of the crime scene
25 investigation and during subsequent visits to the crime
26 scene.
27 Q So as of June 13, the morning of June 13, you
28 found the release button on the inside of the residence to
0023
01 be inoperable; that is, it would not open the gate?
02 A Yes.
03 Q And based on your observation, you were able
04 to manually unlatch the gate if you went down to it and
05 unlatched it?
06 A From the inside?
07 Q Yes.
08 A Yes.
09 Q But you would have to do that in order to open
10 it?
11 A Well, the inner knob is a smooth knob. The outer
12 knob, towards the street, is keyed. So from the inside you
13 could open it by the knob; but one would have to, if they
14 were opening it from the inside, reach over the gate and
15 undo the latch on the outside.
16 Q As well?
17 A Yes.
18 Q You indicated, I think, you found Miss Simpson up
19 against or next to the stairs that were leading up to the
20 landing that leads to the front door?
21 A She was lying more or less on her left side, in
22 what I would term a semifetal position, with the head in a
23 north by northeasterly direction.
24 Q After you go up those stairs, if you were
25 going to go to the back alley, can you describe the path
26 that you would take?
27 A To the back alley from that location?
28 Q Yes.
0024
01 A Yes.
02 There are three or four steps leading, above
03 where she was located, to a porch area; and then there are,
04 I believe, two more steps up another area towards the front
05 door, which would be off to one's left if you were walking
06 in a westerly direction.
07 That pathway continues westerly to the point
08 where there is a small gate. One would go through the
09 latch gate and then descend several steps to a lower area,
10 where the housekeeper's quarters would probably be located,
11 and proceed along that area to a point where there are some
12 more steps going up, another level area; and one would
13 eventually reach a locking gate similar to the front gate,
14 located at the northwest corner of the property. This
15 particular gate had a dead-bolt lock, again, accessible
16 from the inside and not the outside.
17 Q So from the pathway that is perpendicular to
18 the sidewalk, you would go up some stairs, across a
19 landing, down some stairs and out through a rear gate to
20 a driveway area that is near -- that is in front of the
21 garage, that leads to an alley?
22 A Yes. The residence driveway is to the rear
23 there.
24 Q And the alley runs north/south?
25 A Yes.
26 Q Did you also look at the inside of the house
27 at 875 south Bundy?
28 A Yes.
0025
01 Q When you saw that house, sir, can you describe
02 the position of the front door?
03 A When I observed it, the front door was wide open.
04 Q Is that the way, if you know, in which it was
05 found by the first officer?
06 A That was my information, yes.
07 Q Showing you now a photograph that appears to
08 be -- has the number 104 in it --
09 ms. clark: I ask this be marked People's --
10 the court: 10.
11 ms. clark: -- 10.
12 Thank you, your Honor.
13 Q -- Can you tell us what that is, sir?
14 A Yes.
15 This is the white envelope I mentioned
16 previously, located between both victims, on the ground,
17 with the prescription -- what appeared to be prescription
18 glasses in it.
19 Q Did you see any writing on that envelope, sir?
20 A Eventually, when it was turned over, I did see
21 some writing on the face side, something to the effect of
22 "nicole Simpson, prescription glasses."
23 Q Do you see a pattern I am pointing out now just
24 below that white envelope that appears to be a pattern in
25 blood?
26 A Yes.
27 Q Did you observe that when you were at the scene
28 that morning?
0026
01 A Yes.
02 Q On June 13?
03 A Yes.
04 Q What was that, sir, or what did it appear to
05 you to be?
06 A it appeared to me to be a bloody shoe print of
07 some type.
08 Q You indicated, I think, earlier in your
09 testimony you saw a few bloody shoe prints leading away
10 from the bodies of the victims?
11 A Yes.
12 Q Did they appear to be the same kind of tread
13 as is shown in People's 10?
14 A They appeared to be consistent, yes.
15 ms. clark: Would the court like to see the
16 photograph?
17 Q Showing you now a photograph with the number
18 103 on it --
19 ms. clark: Ask it be marked People's 11.
20 THE COURT: All right.
21 BY ms. clark:
22 Q -- can you tell us what is depicted in that
23 photograph, sir?
24 A This is also, I would like to point out -- there
25 is another what appears to be bloody footprint, the dark
26 blue knit ski-type cap that I described earlier and the
27 aforementioned dark brown leather glove that was located
28 near the feet of Mr. Goldman.
0027
01 Q Do you see, also, what appears to be a bloody
02 print in this photograph as well?
03 A Yeah.
04 Q What was that, sir?
05 A Again, it is a bloody footprint that was
06 consistent with the others that I had seen.
07 Q Shoe print?
08 A Shoe print. I'm sorry.
09 MS. CLARK: And a photograph with the number --
10 another photograph with the number 102 in it, People's
11 12.
12 Q Can you tell us what is depicted there, sir?
13 A This is a close-up shot of the dark brown
14 leather glove that I mentioned.
15 Again, there is a -- appears to be a shoe print
16 of a bloody shoe.
17 MS. CLARK: And a photograph with the toe of a shoe in
18 it, depicting a brown glove and what appears to be blue
19 knit cap, People's 13.
20 Q Showing you People's 13, sir, can you tell me
21 what is shown in that photograph?
22 A This is another photograph of the dark brown
23 leather glove. It shows a portion of the left foot of
24 Mr. Goldman, the victim. It also shows the dark blue ski
25 cap that i mentioned earlier. Again, we have a bloody shoe
26 print depicted.
27 Q Are those the same items depicted in the
28 previous photographs that have numbers on them, sir?
0028
01 A Yes. They are just from a different angle.
02 Q And showing you a photograph that appears to
03 have the numbers 102, 103 and 104 in it --
04 ms. clark: People's 14.
05 THE COURT: I think the last one should have been --
06 okay. The last one was 13?
07 THE CLERK: Right.
08 THE COURT: So this is 14.
09 ms. clark: Is that right?
10 THE COURT: Yes.
11 BY ms. clark:
12 Q Showing you People's 14, sir, tell us what that
13 depicts.
14 A This is more or less an overall shot of the
15 direct crime scene after the victims had been removed,
16 indicating the aforementioned white envelope with the
17 glasses, the dark brown leather glove, the blue ski cap and
18 the shoe prints.
19 Q Is that the perspective shot of all of the items
20 in the one picture you have been shown, that we have talked
21 about?
22 A Yes.
23 ms. clark: A picture with the No. 107 in it, People's
24 15.
25 Q Can you tell us, sir, if you notice any what
26 appear to be blood patterns reflecting a shoe print that
27 you have previously described in that photograph?
28 A This is a photograph at the stoop, or stairs,
0029
01 where nicole Simpson was located, looking in a westerly
02 direction. It appears to be an outline of the shoe print
03 on the first step leading up in a westerly direction, in a
04 large pool of blood.
05 Q The sheet shown in that photograph, sir, with
06 the number 107 on it, is that where you found
07 Miss Brown?
08 A Yes.
09 MS. CLARK: And People's 16.
10 Q Please tell us what is depicted in this
11 photograph, sir.
12 A 16 is the right foot -- beneath the right foot
13 of Mr. Goldman, the victim, depicting the sole and heel
14 of his right shoe.
15 Q And why did you want that photograph taken, sir?
16 A It was important to us to determine whether or
17 not the victims had any blood on the soles or heels of
18 their shoes.
19 Q Were you also interested in seeing the pattern of
20 the soles of the shoes?
21 A Yes; that, also.
22 Q Was Miss Brown wearing any shoes?
23 A No. She was barefoot.
24 Q Can you describe for us, sir, what Miss Brown was
25 wearing at the time that you saw her?
26 A She was wearing what I describe as a black shift
27 or cocktail dress, sleeveless. It had one strap around the
28 neck.
0030
01 Q A halter dress?
02 A Halter dress, yes.
03 Q Can you describe for us what ron Goldman was
04 wearing when you saw him?
05 A He was wearing some type of levi's. He was
06 wearing athletic-type -- what I describe as perhaps
07 athletic-type boots that were secured high on his ankle.
08 He had on a light-colored plaid, long-sleeve shirt.
09 Q When you first arrived at the scene, sir, had
10 anyone yet been able to identify ron Goldman?
11 A No. He had not been identified.
12 Q If you know, at some point -- was he identified
13 at some point during that morning?
14 A Yes.
15 Q And how did that come about?
16 A Once the coroner's representative had arrived, a
17 search was made of his pockets and his driver's license was
18 recovered.
19 ms. clark: I would like to mark a photograph of what
20 appears to be a driver's license People's 17.
21 THE COURT: Yes.
22 BY ms. clark:
23 Q Showing you People's 17, sir, tell us if you
24 recognize what I am showing you.
25 A Yes. That is a photograph of Mr. Goldman's
26 driver's license as well as a photograph of a union bank
27 card.
28 Q Is that the driver's license that you saw that
0031
01 was retrieved from the pocket of Mr. Goldman?
02 A Yes.
03 Q If you would, sir, can you describe the
04 lighting as you found it when you arrived at the scene
05 of 875 south Bundy?
06 A When I arrived initially, there was a porch light
07 on over the front door -- the ceiling-type light. There
08 was a small light located to the south of the stationary
09 gate near where Miss Simpson was located, a lamp that shown
10 directly straight up.
11 There was a very dim malibu light located east of
12 the location. And as far as overhead street lights, there
13 was one to the east of the location on the street; however,
14 the illumination appeared to have no bearing on the scene
15 itself.
16 There was an additional hanging lamp on the
17 northeast corner of dorothy and Bundy that gave some
18 indirect lighting on the scene. Additionally, there was
19 a light on the building itself, on the residence, in the
20 southeast corner of the residence, outside, that really
21 had no direct bearing on the immediate scene.
22 Q Overall, sir, would you say that the lighting in
23 the area where the victims were was very well lit, dark?
24 Can you describe --
25 a I wouldn't call it well lit. There was some
26 light, but there is also a great deal of foliage and
27 shrubbery around the area that would block out not only the
28 overhead lighting but some lighting from the residence
0032
01 itself.
02 Q Did you notice whether there was any kind of
03 light on the gate itself?
04 A On the gate?
05 Q Yes; the gate in front of the residence.
06 A Not on the gate.
07 Q What, if any, lighting was there working on
08 the night that you were there that you observed in the
09 front of the house?
10 A Again, initially what I observed was a small
11 light that was planted in the ground near the mailbox south
12 of the victims.
13 Q Was that on?
14 A It was on initially, yes.
15 Q How about the porch light?
16 A The porch light was on.
17 Q How much light did that give?
18 A Not a great deal of light. It did light the
19 area, but it was not what I would call a great deal of
20 light.
21 ms. clark: Your Honor, I have here a photograph. I
22 am going to ask it be marked People's 17 --
23 THE COURT: 18.
24 ms. clark: -- 18.
25 Thank you.
26 Q Showing you People's 18, sir, can you please tell
27 us what is depicted in that photograph?
28 A This is a photograph looking in a northwesterly
0033
01 direction of the victim Mr. Goldman.
02 Q And that depicts the body of the victim
03 Mr. Goldman as you found him, sir?
04 A Yes.
05 Q In that photograph can you see the envelope you
06 have earlier described, that bore the writing of "nicole
07 Simpson, prescription glasses"?
08 A Yes.
09 Q You described for us earlier, sir, a blood
10 trail that went from the area where the victims were found
11 to the outer area -- all the way out to the alley behind
12 the house?
13 A Yes.
14 ms. clark: I have a series of photographs, your
15 Honor, "A" through "G." Ask they be marked People's 19.
16 THE COURT: All right.
17 ms. clark: And another three photographs
18 collectively, ask they be marked as People's 20.
19 THE COURT: All right.
20 BY ms. clark:
21 Q First of all, sir, I am showing you People's
22 19.
23 If you would, please describe what is shown in
24 each photograph and, as best you can, describe the location
25 in which we see each of the markers.
26 A The photograph "A," this is looking in a westerly
27 direction. This is the walkway described earlier. The
28 victims would have been found below this photograph. This
0034
01 is the first landing area. These three steps lead up to
02 the front entrance, which is just off to the left here.
03 The numbers depicted were placed there by the
04 criminalist, indicate blood droplets that were located.
05 Item -- photograph "B" is a close-up of no. 112,
06 a blood droplet.
07 Photograph "C," item 113, depicted overall in
08 photograph "A," is another close-up of an apparent blood
09 droplet.
10 Photograph "D" indicates a stairwell on the
11 walkway, overall depicted in photograph "A," leading in a
12 westerly direction downwards.
13 Here we have item 114, which is an overall of a
14 blood droplet. The close-up of the blood droplet is
15 indicated in photograph "E."
16 Photograph "D," we have various letters. These
17 are corresponding to bloody shoe prints that I alluded to
18 earlier.
19 Q Letters, sir?
20 Are you talking about other markings that are on
21 that photograph?
22 A Yes.
23 Q A-G, A-H, A-I, A-J, A-K, etc.?
24 A Yes.
25 These were placed by the criminalist.
26 Q To mark the bloody shoe prints?
27 A Yes.
28 Photograph "F," again, is looking westerly. That
0035
01 is the rear gate of the property, located in the -- here is
02 the gate located in the northwest corner of the property.
03 These are the stairs going up. Here you see an overall
04 shot of item 115.
05 Photograph "G" is a close-up of that which
06 appears to be a blood droplet.
07 Q That photograph "F," sir, does that show the rear
08 gate that opens out to the garage and alley area?
09 A Yes.
10 Q Now showing you People's 20, will you tell us
11 what is depicted in those photos, "A," "B" and "C"; and
12 describe the location that is shown in those photographs.
13 A photograph "a" is a close-up of the rear gate,
14 what appears to be blood, blood droplets.
15 item "b," photograph "b," again, is an overall
16 depiction of what appears to be a blood droplet; and a
17 close-up of that is indicated in photograph "c."
18 Q So that is the outer area that actually is the
19 driveway of the garage and alley?
20 A Yes.
21 This is the -- just off to the left here would be
22 the vehicle, the cherokee vehicle, that belonged to
23 Miss Simpson.
24 Q You are indicating photograph "b" there, sir?
25 A photograph "b."
26 This is looking in a north by northwesterly
27 direction. The alley would be -- the north/south alley
28 would be depicted at the top here from left to right.
0036
01 Q And in photograph -- you indicate in photograph
02 "a" -- is that gate?
03 A Yes.
04 Q When you were at the crime scene that morning,
05 on June 13, did you notice the position of that gate that
06 is shown in photograph "a"?
07 A The gate was in the open position.
08 Q To your knowledge, was it open at the time the
09 first officer arrived?
10 A My recollection is that it was ajar, somewhat
11 open; It wasn't secured.
12 Q It wasn't locked?
13 A Correct.
14 Q Sir, is it part of your duties as an
15 investigating officer to direct the collection of
16 evidence and the TAKING of photographs?
17 A Yes; working with the criminalist.
18 Q And so at the crime scene, you assess what you
19 think is important, what is evidence and should be
20 preserved either by photographing or collection or both?
21 A Yes.
22 Q In this particular case, sir, the blood drops
23 you have described in People's 19 and 20, did you direct
24 that these photographs be taken?
25 A Yes.
26 Q Why?
27 A The -- it was apparent to me that these blood
28 droplets were not directly associated with the victims
0037
01 and that they were perhaps in association with the
02 bloody shoe prints leading from the scene. It was also
03 apparent that they would be connected to a suspect in
04 this -- in this instance.
05 Q So what were your instructions to the criminalist
06 with respect to these blood drops you have identified in
07 People's 19 and 20?
08 A To photograph, preserve and collect these
09 exhibits.
10 Q And with respect to all of the items you have
11 previously identified in photographs we have marked
12 during the course of your testimony, were those all
13 items that you requested be collected by the criminalist
14 and photographed in places they were found?
15 A Yes.
16 Q And are they depicted in the photographs as you
17 found them, sir?
18 A Yes.
19 Q Now, did you attend the autopsies in this case?
20 A Yes.
21 Q And observed them both -- nicole brown and ron
22 Goldman?
23 A Yes.
24 Q Showing you the exhibits previously marked as
25 People's 3 and People's 2, can you tell me whether these
26 are the people whose autopsies you were present at with
27 respect to this case, please?
28 A Yes.
0038
01 People's 2, I believe it is Mr. Goldman.
02 People's 3 is, in fact, Miss Nicole brown.
03 Q In your presence, sir, were blood samples
04 taken from each of those people?
05 A Yes.
06 Q And did you retrieve those vials of blood that
07 were given to you -- that were made by the coroner
08 during the course of the autopsy?
09 A Actually, my partner, detective Vannatter,
10 retrieved them on the following day. I believe it was June
11 15.
12 Q Sir, are you familiar with the term D.R. number?
13 A Yes.
14 Q What is that?
15 A D.R. are the letters for what in LAPD we term a
16 division of records number. This is a number that is
17 assigned to a particular crime, to a particular victim.
18 The first two digits would indicate the year.
19 Something occurring this year would be preceded by a number
20 94.
21 The second two digits would indicate the
22 geographical division involved. In this case,
23 geographically, west Los Angeles division is 8; so it would
24 be 08.
25 And the five subsequent numbers are the
26 individual report numbers.
27 Q And is there a D.R. number assigned to this case,
28 sir?
0039
01 A There are two D.R. numbers, one for each
02 victim.
03 Q Do you know what they are?
04 A 94-08-17431 and -32.
05 Q The -31 number, is that the main number?
06 A Yes. It is what we call the key number. It
07 would be the first number obtained, that all subsequent
08 reports would be keyed off.
09
10
11
0040
01 Q And the -32 number exists to designate a
02 second victim?
03 A Yes.
04 Q Is all of the evidence collected in this case
05 assigned that D.R. number?
06 A Yes.
07 Q And which one would it be assigned, the -31 or
08 the -32 number?
09 A The first one, the -31 number.
10 Q So if it bears that number, it indicates it
11 was the evidence recovered in this case?
12 A Yes.
13 MS. CLARK: May I have a moment, Your Honor?
14 THE COURT: Yes.
15 MS. CLARK: I have nothing further.
16 THE COURT: Mr. Shapiro.
17 MR. SHAPIRO: Yes, thank you very much, Your Honor.
18
19 CROSS-EXAMINATION
20
21 BY MR. SHAPIRO:
22 Q Good morning, Detective Lange.
23 A Good morning.
24 Q Is this case still in the process of an
25 on-going investigation?
26 A Yes.
27 Q And have you from the onset until the present
28 time been getting leads on possible other suspects?
0041
01 A Yes.
02 Q And are you investigating those leads?
03 A Personally, I am not. At this particular
04 point they are being gathered, categorized, and we're
05 assigning them out as quickly as we can.
06 Q Who is in charge of investigating other leads?
07 A At this point, it's detective Paine.
08 Q And how many people are under his direction
09 investigating these other leads?
10 A The number varies. Again, we're trying to
11 prioritize the amount of information we're getting. He
12 probably will have anywhere from six to ten or perhaps
13 more people, depending on the amount of information
14 coming in.
15 Q Do you know what stage these leads are in, in
16 terms of development?
17 A Very, very early, I would say.
18 Q According to all the information you have
19 received, was the first call relative to this
20 investigation a call that there was a burglary suspect
21 at 874 south Bundy drive?
22 A It seems to me there was a call to that
23 effect, a prowler or something like that. I don't
24 recall exactly.
25 Q Do you have any records of the first call that
26 was received that resulted in this investigation?
27 A I believe we might have. I haven't checked
28 that. I don't know for sure.
0042
01 Q And the officers who took that call, are they
02 required to record that type of call?
03 A The officers who responded to this --
04 Q No, who received the call, that there was a
05 burglary suspect.
06 A Well, I'm sure they'd record it, yes.
07 There's a daily field activity report that most units
08 fill out that they'd have it on.
09 Q The exact time of the radio call and the type
10 of the call are required by L.A.P.D. policy to be
11 recorded, are they not?
12 A They certainly should be, yes.
13 Q Do you have any information as to how that
14 call regarding a burglar suspect at Bundy was
15 broadcasted?
16 A No, I don't. Again, I'm not familiar with
17 the particular details of that radio call. It's just
18 my knowledge that I believe there was a previous call to
19 that location.
20 Q Do you have any information that this call was
21 broadcast on June 13th, 1994, at approximately 0010
22 hours?
23 A Do I have information?
24 Q Yes.
25 A It is -- there's very possibly information in
26 the book.
27 Q And do you have -- would this radio call be a
28 high priority call?
0043
01 A It would depend. If a suspect were at the
02 location at that time, it would be a high priority
03 call. If the suspect had left, not necessarily, unless
04 the suspect's still in the area.
05 Again, I don't know what the details were on
06 that call.
07 Q Was the location of this call, 874 south
08 Bundy, directly across the street from the homicide
09 scene?
10 A I don't recall the address.
11 Q Do you have any records of that?
12 A I believe there are some records. It seems
13 to me it was right in the vicinity, though, yes.
14 Q If it was 874 south Bundy drive, would that be
15 directly across the street from the homicide scene?
16 A Yes, it would.
17 Q Did you or anyone under your staff -- anyone
18 in your staff locate the person who initiated this phone
19 call?
20 A I did not, and I'm not aware of anyone else
21 who did, other than the responding officers perhaps.
22 Q Did you or anyone under your direction
23 interview anybody at 874 south Bundy?
24 A I honestly can't give you an answer. We've
25 done in excess of a hundred interviews and we've had
26 perhaps a dozen investigators doing this. We have
27 information coming in all the time. I really don't
28 know.
0044
01 Q Does a radio call of this nature cause to be
02 generated an incident report?
03 A It would probably depend on whether or not a
04 crime has occurred. If it were just a prowler call,
05 perhaps it would just be a mention in their activities
06 report. If a crime had occurred, then, of course,
07 they'd be required to take a crime report.
08 Q What if it said, "burglary suspect there now
09 at 874 south Bundy drive"? Would that type of radio
10 call generate an incident report?
11 A Not necessarily.
12 Q Do you know if an incident report was
13 generated?
14 A No, I don't.
15 Q If such a report was generated, would that be
16 included in the murder book?
17 A I would hope we would eventually get that.
18 Q Have you seen such a report in the murder
19 book?
20 A I don't recall seeing a report to that effect.
21 Q Was there any report that the burglary suspect
22 that was there was a Caucasian?
23 A Again, Mr. Shapiro, I'm not familiar with the
24 details of that report.
25 Q Now, are the first officers at the scene
26 required to protect the crime scene and cordon off the
27 vulnerable areas?
28 A Yes.
0045
01 Q Are the officers required to determine if an
02 ambulance crew or any other person moved the body or any
03 other items within the crime scene?
04 A It would be helpful, but they're not
05 necessarily required to do that.
06 Q Are the officers required to record the names,
07 addresses and date of births and telephone numbers of
08 all persons at the crime scene?
09 A That's preferable again, yes.
10 Q If an ambulance crew is present, are the
11 officers required to record their names, serial numbers,
12 and obtain a rescue report?
13 A They should do that, yes, on a crime scene
14 log. That's correct.
15 Q Was such a crew there?
16 A I don't believe so.
17 Q Would you check your chronological record,
18 please.
19 A Yes.
20 If you give me a moment. There are several
21 logs from several incidents here.
22 Q Maybe I can help you with that.
23 Why don't you look at --
24 A I believe I have it, thank you.
25 Q -- 00038.
26 A Yes, I have it, thank you.
27 Q Does that indicate whether any emergency
28 crews were there other than police?
0046
01 A I'm checking. It's quite lengthy. I wasn't
02 there to observe. If I may have a moment.
03 There is an indication of a Los Angeles Fire
04 Department captain at the scene. It states here he was
05 not needed. This does not necessarily mean that this
06 was a paramedic, but a representative from the L.A. Fire
07 Department.
08 Q Have you ever talked to that person?
09 A No.
10 Q Has anybody, to your knowledge, talked to that
11 person?
12 A To my knowledge, no, I don't know.
13 Q Has anybody recorded the names of any other
14 personnel that may have been there with the Fire
15 Department?
16 A Well, I'm still checking here. If I could
17 have a moment?
18 Q Pardon?
19 A Can I take a moment? I'm still checking.
20 Q Yes. Let me know when you've had a chance.
21 A Thank you.
22 No, the only representative I see from the
23 Fire Department is that captain.
24 Q Do you know what type of vehicle he arrived
25 in?
26 A No.
27 Q Did anyone check to see whether he inspected
28 the bodies?
0047
01 A That's not indicated. All it says is, "not
02 needed." So --
03 Q My question was did anyone check to see if he
04 went to the bodies at the crime scene?
05 A I don't know.
06 Q Did anyone check to see if he disturbed
07 anything at the crime scene?
08 A I have no knowledge of that.
09 Q Did anyone check to see if he came with a
10 crew?
11 A If he would have come with a crew, their names
12 should have been logged, and all I see is his name, so
13 I'm assuming that he was the only one there.
14 Q Whose responsibility is it to see that no one
15 enters the crime scene?
16 A The officers who would have been assigned to
17 secure the crime scene.
18 Q And who were they?
19 A Again, referring to my log, we have officers
20 Cummings and Sanchez, Mc Allen and Walley, Zeigler, and
21 it appears to be Glorioso. The primary unit, Riske and
22 Terrazas, would probably have had something to do with
23 that. Also assisting officers Gonzales and Aston.
24 Q Have you read any reports that any of these
25 officers generated regarding their observations when
26 they arrived at the scene?
27 MS. CLARK: Objection; irrelevant.
28 THE COURT: Sustained.
0048
01 BY MR. SHAPIRO:
02 Q Have you talked to any of those officers?
03 MS. CLARK: Objection; irrelevant.
04 THE COURT: Sustained.
05 MR. SHAPIRO: May I be heard, Your Honor?
06 THE COURT: Yes.
07 MR. SHAPIRO: I think one of the key issues in this
08 case is whether or not the crime scene was disturbed,
09 and this is foundational for asking those questions.
10 THE COURT: All right.
11 MS. CLARK: Your Honor, if counsel has concerns in
12 that regard, he can certainly subpoena the first officer
13 on the scene who could explain what he did to secure it
14 and how he kept people out of the scene, or perhaps
15 failed to do so. But asking this detective who appeared
16 on the scene some four hours after the first officer
17 appeared is ineffective.
18 There's no way to -- that this officer could
19 possibly know what transpired before he arrived, and
20 asking him what was done and who came in and who did not
21 would call for hearsay and speculation.
22 THE COURT: Well, I think here, since we're back
23 now to the preliminary hearing, if the appropriate
24 foundation had been established with regard to the
25 number of years that this detective has been with the
26 department -- which I believe that was part of your
27 early testimony -- hearsay would probably be admissible,
28 assuming that he's not acting as a mere reader officer
0049
01 and that that information was imparted to him by some
02 other person.
03 So the objection is overruled, subject to the
04 appropriate foundation.
05 MS. CLARK: Thank you, Your Honor.
06 BY MR. SHAPIRO:
07 Q Did you read any of the reports that were
08 generated by any of these officers?
09 A Yes.
10 Q Have you talked to any of these officers?
11 A No.
12 Q Do you know if any -- did you ask them if they
13 did anything at the crime scene upon arrival?
14 A Personally, I did not. It was done by
15 someone else.
16 Q Who was that done by?
17 A detective Phillips.
18 Q And did he report that anything was done at
19 the crime scene by any of these officers?
20 A Well, it's pretty vague. If you'd like, I
21 could tell you what the reports indicated.
22 Q Yes, would you.
23 A The reports -- each officer was interviewed
24 separately as to what they did at the location, where
25 they stood, where they stepped, whether or not they were
26 injured. There are reports as to each officer.
27 Each officer's shoe prints were photographed
28 and they each gave a statement as to exactly what they
0050
01 did at the scene.
02 Q Is there any policy regarding how persons can
03 enter a cordoned off crime scene?
04 A Is there any policy?
05 Q Yes.
06 A Well, again, policy is a guideline. No two
07 crime scenes are alike. Therefore, we have policy,
08 but, again, policy is merely a guideline. It can't
09 dictate to you how to handle any particular crime scene.
10 Q Is the policy generally that no crime scene
11 shall be entered except in the accompaniment of an
12 officer?
13 A You could interpret it as generally being that
14 way, but, again, it's merely a guideline.
15 Q And to caution anybody who does regarding
16 contamination or alteration of evidence?
17 A Certainly.
18 Q Was that done in this case?
19 A Again, I was not present. I would certainly
20 hope it was.
21 Q Now, when -- did you and your partner,
22 detective Vannatter, arrive together or in different
23 vehicles at the Bundy crime scene?
24 A Separately.
25 Q Who arrived first?
26 A detective Vannatter.
27 Q You arrived how much later?
28 A Yes.
0051
01 Q How much later did you arrive, do you know?
02 A Oh, I believe it was approximately 20 or 25
03 minutes.
04 Q And did you observe the crime scene to be
05 secure when you entered?
06 A It was secure in my mind, yes.
07 Q Were the tapes, ropes, barricades, placed in
08 proper positions?
09 A There was yellow police tape that was up, and
10 there were uniformed officers, I believe, stationed at
11 the front and the rear of the location.
12 Q In your opinion, was it properly barricaded?
13 A If you refer to yellow tape as barricades,
14 yes. There were no actual barricades.
15 Q I'm asking in your expertise as the senior
16 member of the special unit whether or not that crime
17 scene was properly cordoned off at the time you arrived.
18 A In my mind, it appeared to be, yes.
19 Q Upon arriving, did you cause to record the
20 weather conditions and the temperature at the crime
21 scene?
22 A Initially, I did not.
23 Q Is there any importance to doing that?
24 A There may be. There may not.
25 Q And what would the importance be?
26 A The importance certainly may be perhaps one
27 factor of many in determining the time of death.
28 Q Is the time of death an important criteria to
0052
01 establish in a homicide investigation?
02 A I would say in most instances, yes.
03 Q In this case, would it be?
04 A Certainly.
05 Q And is it true in your experience that the
06 earlier you begin the investigation process regarding
07 trying to establish the time of death, the more likely
08 you are to establish the time of death?
09 A Not necessarily.
10 Q You would not agree with that?
11 A Well, again, it's a general statement. There
12 would be instances certainly where that would be true,
13 and there would be instances where it wouldn't
14 necessarily be true.
15 Q In this case would it have been true?
16 A Perhaps.
17 Q And you, as the senior detective there, were
18 in charge of alerting the criminalists, the coroner, and
19 any other support unit you would need to conduct the
20 proper investigation; is that correct?
21 A Well, in conjunction with my partner, yes.
22 Q And what time did you notify the coroner's
23 investigative unit to come out to help ascertain the
24 time of death?
25 A I had requested another detective on the scene
26 to make what we call a first call to the coroner's
27 office to alert them what we had.
28 Subsequent to that, another call is made
0053
01 telling them that we're ready for them. I don't recall
02 who made the call.
03 Q Is there any record of that? Is that in your
04 chronological log?
05 A That may well be with the coroner's log.
06 Q Is it in your chronological log?
07 A I don't believe I have it in my chronological
08 log.
09 Q Is that something that you should have in your
10 log?
11 A Not necessarily.
12 Q What time did the coroner's investigators
13 arrive at the crime scene?
14 A Would you like me to refer to the homicide
15 log?
16 Q If you don't know.
17 A I have no personal recollection.
18 Q Do you have a general idea how many hours it
19 was after the initial report?
20 A It seems to me it was probably approximately
21 10:00 o'clock, 9:30, 10:00, 10:15, somewhere in there.
22 But it's only a guess.
23 Q Would you feel more comfortable in reviewing
24 your notes?
25 A It doesn't matter to me. If you'd like me
26 to, if you want a specific time --
27 Q If you're comfortable with that answer,
28 fine. If you're not --
0054
01 A Well, no. Again, you asked me if I had a
02 specific time. If you want, I can look at the log for
03 you. I do not recall a specific time.
04 Q We would like to get the answer that closest
05 resembles what occurred. So if your notes would help
06 in that, we would appreciate it.
07 A Well, it's in the log.
08 Q Please check that, then.
09 A The personnel log at the scene indicates that
10 coroner's representative Ratcliffe arrived at 9:10 a.m.
11 and coroner's representative Jacobo arrived at 9:20 a.m.
12 Q Are you familiar with the term "rigor mortis"?
13 A Yes.
14 Q And is that some -- a factor that's used to
15 determine the time of death?
16 A It can be, yes.
17 Q And in a case involving a homicide like this
18 one, would it be important to try to establish the time
19 of rigor mortis as close to the time of the actual death
20 for establishing later the time of death?
21 A The time of rigor mortis? I don't
22 understand. Rigor mortis is an ongoing thing.
23 Q Is that determination a time determination?
24 In other words, is that a determination that if made
25 earlier is more helpful, or it doesn't matter when it's
26 made?
27 MS. CLARK: Objection. Vague, ambiguous, calls
28 for a conclusion from a nonexpert witness of an expert
0055
01 nature.
02 THE COURT: Sustained.
03 There's no foundation that this detective
04 knows the answer to that.
05 MR. SHAPIRO: Thank you, Your Honor.
06 BY MR. SHAPIRO:
07 Q Do you know the answer to those things?
08 A I'm sorry --
09 MS. CLARK: Objection; Your Honor. That was the
10 whole point. No foundation was laid.
11 THE COURT: I think that you'd have to sort of lay
12 the foundation before you ask the general conclusion if
13 there's no answer.
14 BY MR. SHAPIRO:
15 Q Are you an expert in homicide investigations?
16 A I guess that's open to interpretation.
17 Q Have you qualified as an expert in homicide
18 investigations?
19 A I have.
20 Q On how many occasions?
21 A I've been court qualified on at least one
22 occasion in superior and Federal Court.
23 Q Do you consider yourself an expert in homicide
24 investigations?
25 MS. CLARK: Objection; irrelevant.
26 THE COURT: Sustained.
27 BY MR. SHAPIRO:
28 Q Do others consider you an expert in homicide
0056
01 investigations in your department?
02 MS. CLARK: Calls for speculation, irrelevant.
03 Objection.
04 THE COURT: Overruled.
05 THE WITNESS: I -- you would have to ask them.
06 MR. SHAPIRO: Can we call detective Vannatter,
07 please?
08 We'll proceed.
09 BY MR. SHAPIRO:
10 Q You guys are very modest, I must say.
11 Are you familiar with such terms as
12 "lividity," "temperature change," "digestion in the
13 stomach," and "eye fluids" as they relate to time of
14 death?
15 A Yes.
16 Q Are any of those things important criteria in
17 establishing time of death?
18 A They can be.
19 Q Are all of those important criteria in
20 establishing the time of death?
21 A They certainly can be.
22 Q Now, you called for a criminalist to come to
23 the scene; is that correct?
24 A I personally did not, but a --
25 Q At your direction?
26 A Yes.
27 Q At your direction.
28 I know you don't dial the phone for all these
0057
01 things. You're kind of like the coach or the
02 quarterback. You tell other people what to do?
03 A Sometimes.
04 Q Did you in this case?
05 A Yes.
06 Q And that was your job.
07 A Yes.
08 Q And you told somebody for a criminalist to
09 come out.
10 A Yes.
11 Q And the first place you directed the
12 criminalist to come was to Rockingham; isn't that
13 correct?
14 A I don't recall exactly how that happened. I
15 know that he was directed to Rockingham first, though.
16 Q And did you consider Rockingham to be a
17 homicide scene at the time he was directed there?
18 A No.
19 Q Did you consider Bundy to be a homicide scene?
20 A Yes.
21 Q Of the two, which did you consider to be more
22 important in terms of priority to get a criminalist
23 there?
24 A More important to get a criminalist would be
25 Rockingham.
26 Q And that was before you and the other officers
27 made your emergency entry into that location, wasn't it?
28 A I believe the request for a criminalist to
0058
01 test the apparent blood stain on the vehicle was before.
02 Q Was before?
03 A I believe it was.
04 Q You're not --
05 A I'm a little unclear because I left the
06 Rockingham location shortly thereafter to return to the
07 Bundy location.
08 Q Do you have any records to indicate the time
09 that the criminalist arrived at Rockingham?
10 A I was not present when he arrived at
11 Rockingham.
12 Q My question is, do you have any records to
13 indicate the time the criminalist arrived?
14 A I may have in my possession. Like I said,
15 there are many logs here.
16 Q Is that -- well, that's something you are
17 required to record, isn't it, what time a criminalist
18 initially arrives at a crime scene?
19 A Well, I would hope someone would, certainly.
20 Q Would you check who did that and what time the
21 criminalist arrived?
22 A I don't know and I don't have that
23 information. If a separate log was kept after I left
24 the location, I'll have to go through quite a bit of
25 material here.
26 Q You've got your lieutenant here and you've got
27 two deputy district attorneys. Maybe you could take a
28 moment and the four of you might be able to find this.
0059
01 THE COURT: I think, Mr. Shapiro, we'll take the
02 morning recess at this time and that should facilitate.
03 MR. SHAPIRO: That should help in finding it.
04 Thank you, judge.
05
06
07
08 (A recess was taken at 10:26 a.m.)
09
10
0060
01 TOM LANGE,
02 having been previously duly sworn, resumed the stand, was
03 examined and testified further as follows:
04 THE COURT: We are again on the record in the case of
05 people v. Simpson. The defendant is present with counsel.
06 The people are represented.
07 Mr. Shapiro.
08 MR. SHAPIRO: Yes.
09
10 cross-examination (resumed)
11
12 BY mr. shapiro:
13 Q I believe there was a question pending.
14 A May I have it repeated, please.
15 Q Do you have records to reflect in your
16 chronological log the time the criminalist first arrived at
17 the Rockingham scene?
18 A I don't.
19 Q Did you check with the lieutenant and deputy
20 district attorneys or anyone else?
21 A I checked with my partner at that particular
22 scene, and he indicates there was no log made. And that
23 was not a crime scene at that time. In fact -- would you
24 like me to explain that a little bit?
25 Q I think you have answered the question. Thank
26 you.
27 A Okay.
28 Q Did you file any reports, supplemental reports,
0061
01 or follow-up reports, as to what time the criminalist
02 arrived at the Rockingham location up until and including
03 today?
04 A I didn't. That would be filed by the criminalist
05 himself. He would have his own information, his own log.
06 Q And have you seen such a report?
07 A I haven't seen it, no.
08 Q Do you know if one exists at all?
09 A I am assuming a criminalist's report does
10 exist, yes.
11 Q That would be something you would want to
12 maintain in your murder book, would you not?
13 A Once I get it, yes. We haven't received many
14 things, and that is one of them.
15 Q Isn't the criminalist one of the closest people
16 you work with in a homicide investigation?
17 Ms. clark: Objection. Vague.
18 What does "closest" mean?
19 by Mr. shapiro:
20 Q -- One of the most important?
21 mr. shapiro: I will rephrase that. I think counsel
22 is correct.
23 THE COURT: All right.
24 BY mr. shapiro:
25 Q Would you say a criminalist is one of the most
26 important members of your investigative team in a homicide
27 case?
28 A That would depend, certainly, as to evidence at a
0062
01 crime scene. Subsequent to that, not necessarily; but
02 certainly I would say as to collection of evidence.
03 Q In this case would you say he would be one of the
04 most important members of your investigative team?
05 A As to the collection of serological evidence,
06 yes.
07 Q And is that a very important aspect of this
08 case in your opinion?
09 A Yes.
10 Q Is it maybe the most important aspect of your
11 case?
12 A evidencewise, I would say there is a good
13 possibility of that, yes.
14 Q And as of today you still have not received any
15 reports from him? Is that your testimony?
16 A No. I have received reports from him. But the
17 reporting procedure is ongoing. The investigation is
18 ongoing. I get reports from various entities on a daily
19 basis, sometimes as many as 50 or 100 pages of various
20 things.
21 Q When you and your partner and the two West L.A.
22 homicide detectives left Bundy to go to Rockingham, who did
23 you leave in charge of Bundy?
24 A Lt. Rogers.
25 Q Did you instruct him, even though he is your
26 supervisor, as to what to do?
27 A Basically what to do was to secure the scene
28 until I arrived, until I returned.
0063
01 Q Until you came back?
02 A I'm sorry?
03 Q Until you came back?
04 A Yes.
05 Q And that meant not to let anybody in or out and
06 maintain the perimeter?
07 A Not necessarily.
08 Q What did that mean when you told him -- when you
09 gave him instructions that you were leaving?
10 A To secure the location and that we would be
11 returning.
12 Q What did that mean? What were you conveying
13 to Lt. Rogers to do?
14 A That I was leaving for a short time and that I
15 would soon be returning.
16 Q And what was he to do at your direction?
17 A Remain at the premises.
18 Q And do what? Sit there? Go to sleep?
19 Investigate?
20 A Make sure that no one disturbed the crime scene,
21 basically.
22 Q So he was now in charge of no one entering the
23 crime scene area?
24 A No; not necessarily.
25 Q Was he in charge of continuing the investigation
26 at Bundy?
27 A He was in charge of anything that might have come
28 up while he was there until I arrived back.
0064
01 Q Would you say that your investigation had been
02 completed at the Bundy scene at the time you left for
03 Rockingham?
04 A Certainly not. It hadn't started.
05 Q And did you instruct him to do anything regarding
06 the crime scene investigation, as your supervisor, when you
07 left to go to Rockingham?
08 A The instructions were -- it was mutually
09 understood that he would remain there until I returned.
10 There were no specific instructions to do this or to do
11 that.
12 Q Does the murder book or chronological record
13 indicate whether Lt. Rogers conducted a crime scene
14 investigation in your absence?
15 A I don't believe you would find that in there.
16 Q Did you ask him if he did?
17 A No.
18 Q Is that something you would want to know?
19 A If Lt. Rogers conducted the crime scene
20 investigation?
21 Q In your absence.
22 A No.
23 It was a mutual understanding that, in fact, was
24 my duty and I would do that once I returned, perhaps with
25 his assistance.
26 Q What time did you return to begin your crime
27 scene investigation at the Bundy location?
28 A It was approximately 6:45 a.m.
0065
01 Q So that's now 6 hours and 45 minutes after the
02 report -- the last report of the death; is that correct?
03 A Roughly.
04 Q Is there any benefit in starting a crime scene
05 investigation as soon as possible?
06 A There certainly could be.
07 Q Could there be in this case?
08 A Well, that would be open to speculation; and,
09 certainly, down the road we may know more about this case
10 and find out at that time. At this point it is kind of up
11 in the air.
12 Q Based on what you know now, would it have been
13 your preference to conduct a crime scene investigation
14 at Bundy as soon as possible?
15 Ms. clark: Objection. That is irrelevant, and it is
16 vague.
17 THE COURT: Sustained.
18 BY mr. shapiro:
19 Q When you went to Rockingham, did you direct any
20 officers to do a door-to-door search of the surrounding
21 neighbors?
22 Ms. clark: Objection. Vague. Search?
23 THE COURT: Are you talking about the surrounding
24 neighbors of Bundy or Rockingham?
25 Mr. shapiro: At Bundy.
26 THE COURT: At Bundy?
27 Mr. shapiro: Yes.
28 THE COURT: And by "search," just what do you mean?
0066
01 Mr. shapiro: Let me clarify that. That was a very
02 poorly phrased question.
03 Q Did you direct any officers to door-knock
04 surrounding residents to ascertain if anybody saw anything
05 at Bundy?
06 A I don't recall doing that.
07 Q Do you have any notes to reflect you did that?
08 A No.
09 Q Would you say that it would be appropriate to
10 start at 874 south Bundy, where a suspicious person was
11 reported, to begin looking for potential witnesses?
12 A Not necessarily.
13 Q Have you reviewed, up until today, any
14 communication tapes to see if there were any prowler or
15 burglar calls in the immediate area prior to June 13, 1994,
16 at 0110 (sic) hours?
17 A Nothing.
18 Q During your investigation, have you determined
19 if in the last few years there have been any similar
20 homicides reported in Los Angeles?
21 Ms. clark: Objection. Vague.
22 THE COURT: As to "similar"?
23 ms. clark: Similar to what, in what way?
24 by Mr. shapiro:
25 Q -- Similar to --
26 mr. shapiro: Let me rephrase it.
27 THE COURT: All right.
28
0067
01 BY mr. shapiro:
02 Q -- Similar to the homicide you are investigating
03 in this case?
04 ms. clark: Same objection with respect to --
05 the court: You mean a double murder of an adult male
06 and female?
07 Mr. shapiro: Yes. Similar circumstances; that a
08 male and female were murdered under the same or similar
09 circumstances.
10 Q That's one of the things you do in your
11 investigation, isn't it -- see if there are patterns of
12 homicides?
13 Ms. clark: Objection. It is still vague. What
14 circumstances? Males and females are, unfortunately,
15 murdered every day.
16 In what respect is counsel inquiring as to the
17 similarity?
18 THE COURT: Did you look to see if you had any
19 similar sort of crime reports to the incident there on
20 Bundy?
21 THE WITNESS: No, your honor.
22 BY mr. shapiro:
23 Q Are you familiar with something called a homicide
24 manual of the Los Angeles police department?
25 A Yes.
26 Q And, I take it, you read that; you follow that?
27 A I have read it. It hasn't been updated in a
28 number of years. And I am familiar with it.
0068
01 Q So you think the manual is out of date?
02 A Well, it certainly could be. It is not a
03 Hard-and-fast text on how to conduct a homicide
04 investigation.
05 Q Do you agree with the statement in the homicide
06 manual that the preliminary investigation at the scene is
07 the most important and possibly the most sensitive aspect
08 of the homicide investigation?
09 A I am a little ambivalent about that. Yes and
10 no.
11 It certainly is important. It is not necessarily
12 the most important thing that exists.
13 Q Would you agree with this statement in the
14 manual: that good note-keeping is the foundation of a good
15 homicide investigator?
16 A That is a basic that is certainly preferable,
17 yes.
18 Q Do you agree with this statement in the
19 manual: that accurate, comprehensive and chronological
20 notes not only coordinate the investigation but allow the
21 detective to present the possible case in court, sometimes
22 years later?
23 A Once again, as a guideline, under perfect
24 circumstances, it is certainly something you would want,
25 yes.
26 Q Were field interview cards completed on all
27 possible witnesses?
28 A We have over a hundred witnesses.
0069
01 No. I don't believe so.
02 Q Were neighbors interviewed in the direct
03 proximity of the crime scene who did not hear anything
04 unusual between 10 o'clock and 12 o'clock?
05 A I haven't had a chance to review all of the
06 neighbors' statements; So I am not sure whether a
07 recordation was made of that.
08 Q Were any crime scene broadcasts initiated?
09 A Again, I haven't reviewed the communications
10 tape; so I don't know.
11 Q Did you order that there be no smoking or eating
12 permitted within the crime scene area?
13 A I did not.
14 Q Have you obtained a detailed report of what all
15 the officers at the crime scene reported and the actions
16 they took immediately upon arrival at the crime scene?
17 A Yes.
18 Q Have you ascertained how many officers had gained
19 entry into the crime scene prior to your arrival?
20 A Yes.
21 That should be contained within the statements.
22 Q Have you asked the officers to recreate their
23 movements?
24 A Yes.
25 I have not personally. It was done by detective
26 phillips.
27 Q But that is all recorded --
28 A At my direction, Yes.
0070
01 Q Did you ascertain if any officers smoked at the
02 crime scene?
03 A That, too, would be contained in their
04 statements.
05 Q Did you ascertain if any of the officers or
06 any media personnel drank any coffee at the crime
07 scenes?
08 Ms. clark: Objection. That is vague.
09 THE COURT: When you say "crime scenes," do you
10 mean now both Rockingham and Bundy?
11 Mr. shapiro: Both.
12 Well, there are three crime scenes. There's
13 chicago --
14 Q Would you agree there are three crime scenes in
15 this investigation?
16 A I would agree there are two and perhaps a
17 third which I will term a potential crime scene.
18 Q Let's talk about the two that you would term as
19 crime scenes.
20 Do you have knowledge of anybody drinking
21 coffee in the areas of the crime scenes after they were
22 cordoned off?
23 A At the scene, directly at the scene?
24 No, I don't. I am not aware of anyone who was
25 drinking coffee.
26 Q As the officer in charge, would you say that
27 both crime scenes were protected from destruction or
28 contamination of evidence by onlookers as well as news
0071
01 media personnel?
02 A Number one, I was primarily in charge of the
03 investigation of the Bundy scene. I was not at the
04 Rockingham scene but for a short time. I was -- and the
05 Bundy scene was, in fact, secure, yes.
06 Q Who was in charge of the Rockingham scene?
07 A Detective Vannatter.
08 Q Would you agree or disagree that standing or
09 walking at the crime scene, leaning against doors, walls
10 or windows may destroy valuable evidence, latent
11 fingerprints, hair or skin specimens?
12 A Possibly.
13 ms. clark: objection. Irrelevant.
14 THE COURT: Sustained.
15 mr. shapiro: If I may just have a moment, your Honor.
16 THE COURT: Yes.
17 BY mr. shapiro:
18 Q Did you determine if any police officer checked
19 the shoes of the witnesses who discovered the bodies?
20 A It was related to me that -- I believe, that was
21 done around the time that the dog's paws were observed; but
22 i did not direct that or have personal knowledge of that.
23 Q Are there any reports to indicate that was done?
24 A There may well be. I haven't had time to review
25 those.
26 Q Is there somebody you can check with now to see
27 if there are such notes?
28 A Well, again, all of the notes and statements
0072
01 aren't in.
02 I suppose I could check the officers section. I
03 am not aware if that would be in there or not, though.
04 Q How many footprints that would relate to shoes
05 in blood did you observe at Bundy?
06 A I don't have a number.
07 Q Has anybody calculated the number?
08 A That was assigned to the criminalist.
09 Again, as the footprints moved away in a westerly
10 direction, they faded; so I don't know that you would get
11 an accurate number. But they were charted by the
12 criminalist.
13 Q They were?
14 A I'm sorry?
15 Q They were or weren't?
16 A Charted?
17 Q They were charted?
18 A Well, by "charted," I am referring to
19 photographed and measured. And I requested a so-called
20 stride analysis.
21 Q Have you received that yet?
22 A No.
23 Again, I may have it in my reports. I have
24 hundreds. I haven't been through them all.
25 Q Would you check because we have not received that
26 yet, either.
27 A There is a good chance we haven't, either.
28 ms. clark: I would ask we conduct this discovery
0073
01 procedure off the record, then.
02 THE COURT: Mr. Shapiro, you are entitled to that; but
03 let's have the witness check on that --
04 mr. shapiro: Thank you. I am not going to ask him to
05 do that now.
06 THE COURT: Okay.
07 by mr. shapiro:
08 Q Were you able to determine whether the blood
09 imprints from the shoe were all from the same shoe?
10 Ms. clark: Objection. That calls for speculation.
11 No foundation.
12 THE COURT: Are you able to give an answer to that
13 question?
14 THE WITNESS: No, your honor.
15 BY mr. shapiro:
16 Q Has anybody reported to you there was more than
17 one type of shoe print with blood on it at the scene?
18 A No.
19 Q Have you talked to the criminalist about this?
20 A In regards to these shoe prints, no.
21 Q Is that something you would deem important?
22 Ms. clark: Well, objection. Vague -- something that
23 he would deem important.
24 THE COURT: Speaking to the criminalist about the
25 shoes?
26 Mr. shapiro: Yes.
27 ms. clark: What about the shoes, though? That they
28 existed; they were the same shoe; it was the same tread;
0074
01 they existed at all; where they were found?
02 THE COURT: I interpret the question is whether
03 there was more than one maker of the shoe prints.
04 mr. shapiro: That was my understanding.
05 THE COURT: With that understanding, can you answer
06 that?
07 THE WITNESS: Yes. And it is my belief that the shoe
08 prints probably belong to a suspect or were left by a
09 suspect, and we would certainly like to find out what type
10 of shoes they are.
11 BY mr. shapiro:
12 Q I'm sorry. Your voice is trailing. I couldn't
13 hear the end of the answer.
14 A Could you repeat the question again? I want to
15 give you an accurate answer.
16 Q Have you discussed with the criminalist whether
17 or not the blood prints from the shoes indicate one pair of
18 shoes or more than one pair of shoes?
19 A In a general discussion at the time at the crime
20 scene location, it was the opinion of the criminalist that
21 it appeared they were one.
22 To my knowledge, these prints have not been
23 analyzed and the work has not been completed; so I have
24 made no other requests at this time and had no other
25 conversations regarding them.
26 Q Do you have a report indicating how many spots of
27 blood were found at the Bundy residence -- that you have
28 referred to as drops -- that did not belong to nicole brown
0075
01 or ronald Goldman?
02 A I may have that report, yes.
03 Q Do you know offhand how many that was?
04 A It seems to me it was initially five droplets
05 on the walkway.
06
0076
01 Q And have you or anybody at your direction
02 ascertained when those droplets originated?
03 A When?
04 Q Yes. How long they had been there.
05 A I don't believe there's any way to determine
06 that.
07 MR. SHAPIRO: I don't have any further questions at
08 this time, Your Honor, thank you.
09 THE COURT: Thank you.
10 Ms. Clark, do you have any redirect?
11 MS. CLARK: Yes, thank you, Your Honor.
12
13 REDIRECT EXAMINATION
14
15 BY MS. CLARK:
16 Q Sir, do you have other detectives assisting
17 you on this case besides detective Vannatter?
18 A Yes.
19 Q And is it fairly common in the homicide
20 special section to have other detectives in the unit
21 assist in the investigation of one team of detectives?
22 A Yes.
23 Q And are you aware at this time of every piece
24 of work or report that each of those detectives have
25 generated?
26 A No.
27 Q Would you say that this investigation is in --
28 is an ongoing one, with reports being generated every
0077
01 day?
02 A Yes.
03 Q As time goes by, do you expect to catch up
04 with the reports that have been generated in this case?
05 A I hope so.
06 Q And to read everything that you have?
07 A Yes.
08 Q And to confer with all of the experts in the
09 case?
10 A Yes.
11 Q With respect to the criminalist, sir, at this
12 time the shoe prints have been preserved with respect to
13 the blood and the swabbing and the photographing; is
14 that correct?
15 A Yes.
16 Q Has there been any attempt to analyze those
17 shoe prints any further at this point by that
18 criminalist?
19 A I don't believe so.
20 Q Is it your intention to have that done?
21 A Yes.
22 Q Are there many things that you intend to have
23 done in this case before it proceeds to trial?
24 A Yes.
25 MR. SHAPIRO: Your Honor, I'm going to object to
26 the form of the question. It assumes a fact that the
27 court is going to hopefully determine.
28 THE COURT: Sustained.
0078
01 MR. SHAPIRO: Motion to strike the answer.
02 THE COURT: Stricken.
03 MS. CLARK: All I meant -- I'm sorry.
04 BY MS. CLARK:
05 Q All I meant by that was as the case goes on,
06 there's going to be many things for you to do, assuming
07 the case goes on?
08 MR. SHAPIRO: Your Honor, we have a man who's in
09 custody without bail, and I think that's a very improper
10 question and is very prejudicial.
11 THE COURT: Overruled.
12 BY MS. CLARK:
13 Q Let me ask you this, sir.
14 In the course of every case that you have
15 handled -- and you indicated you've handled 2- to 300
16 homicides?
17 A Yes.
18 Q -- is the investigation always ongoing?
19 A Yes.
20 Q And at the stage of a preliminary hearing for
21 every one of those homicides, is the investigation an
22 ongoing thing?
23 A Yes.
24 Q With many things left to do at the stage of
25 the preliminary hearing?
26 A Yes.
27 Q And this case is no exception.
28 A That's correct.
0079
01 Q Is it unusual to get leads regarding multiple
02 suspects during an investigation, sir?
03 A No.
04 Q In fact, during the course of an entire case?
05 A No.
06 Q And if you don't personally go out to
07 investigate those leads, you do assign those leads to be
08 investigated by someone.
09 A Yes.
10 Q You were asked by counsel why you didn't look
11 for other similar homicides.
12 A I believe it was something like that, yes.
13 Q And you indicated you did not.
14 A Yes.
15 Q Why?
16 A Well, again, we're in the early, early stages
17 in this investigation. At this particular point, this
18 would not be an appropriate time to do it. There is a
19 suspect in custody and we are proceeding against that
20 particular suspect.
21 Eventually, this is probably something that
22 very possibly could be done or it may not be done.
23 Q And when we say "similar homicides," did you
24 understand that to mean like a serial killing?
25 A I didn't know exactly what he was referring
26 to.
27 Q Sir, is it common in an investigation,
28 particularly with respect to a homicide, to have
0080
01 neighbors in the immediate vicinity contacted by police
02 officers to determine what, if anything, they saw or
03 heard?
04 A Yes.
05 Q Was that done in this case?
06 A Yes.
07 Q And although -- did you direct that it be
08 done?
09 A Yes.
10 Q Now, you indicated that in the log a captain
11 of the Fire Department did show up on the scene and it
12 was indicated in your log that he was not needed.
13 Is that correct?
14 A Yes.
15 Q Does it indicate in your log how long he was
16 at the scene?
17 A If I could consult the log.
18 Q Certainly.
19 A The log indicates he was at the scene for five
20 minutes.
21 Q Five minutes.
22 A Yes.
23 Q In your experience, sir, is it common for
24 captains of the Fire Department to interact with the
25 bodies of homicide victims?
26 A It would depend. Possibly. Perhaps not.
27 Q The fact that he was shown to be there only
28 five minutes with an indication that he was not needed,
0081
01 what did that mean to you?
02 MR. SHAPIRO: Objection; calls for speculation.
03 THE COURT: Overruled.
04 THE WITNESS: Told me it would mean that he was
05 aware that the incident had occurred and he was dropping
06 by as the supervisor to see if the fire department's
07 assistance might be needed for anything.
08 BY MS. CLARK:
09 Q Did it indicate to you that he had had any
10 interaction with the bodies of the victims?
11 A No.
12 Q did it indicated to you that it did not?
13 Did that indicate to you that he did not have any
14 interaction with the bodies of the victims?
15 MR. SHAPIRO: Objection; calls for speculation.
16 THE COURT: Sustained.
17 BY MS. CLARK:
18 Q Okay. In your experience, sir, is it
19 generally the paramedics who have interaction with the
20 bodies?
21 A Yes.
22 Q And when that occurs before you arrive at a
23 crime scene, in your experience, sir, when you come on
24 the scene after they have attended to the bodies, is
25 there some way that you can tell they have been there
26 before you?
27 A Yes. They will leave an ambulance slip.
28 Q An ambulance slip?
0082
01 A Ambulance slip indicating they've been there,
02 and the unit and time of death, this type of thing.
03 Q Is there something about the condition of the
04 bodies of the victims that tells you that paramedics
05 have been there to attend to them before you arrive?
06 A Sometimes if paramedics have been there the
07 body position will be altered.
08 Q Have you ever seen the electrocardiogram, the
09 pads that they use for reviving someone that they place
10 on them to revive the heart?
11 A Yes.
12 Q And did you see that in this case?
13 A No.
14 Q But that is frequently left on the bodies of
15 victims when paramedics have attended to them before
16 you've arrived?
17 A Yes.
18 Q Was there anything about the bodies as you saw
19 them in this case that indicated to you that they had
20 been disturbed by anyone in any way?
21 A No.
22 Q Do you happen to know when the coroner's
23 investigator arrived?
24 A I have that notated here in my log. If I
25 may.
26 Investigator Ratcliffe arrived at 9:10 a.m.
27 Q Where were you at that time, sir?
28 A I was at the Bundy location.
0083
01 Q So you saw the coroner's investigator arrive?
02 A Yes.
03 Q Isn't it policy, sir, that no one is to touch
04 the body of a victim before the coroner's investigator
05 arrives?
06 A That's correct.
07 Q And you were present when that coroner's
08 investigator got there.
09 A Yes.
10 Q You indicated, I think, that you did not
11 direct anyone to not smoke or drink at the crime scene
12 at 875 south Bundy.
13 A Yes.
14 Q Why didn't you?
15 A It's generally a given that an officer has
16 been trained and knows better than to smoke or eat at a
17 crime scene.
18 If someone had been observed doing that, we
19 would have jumped on them right away. That is not
20 tolerated at a crime scene, and that's general
21 knowledge.
22 Q So when there's tape around a scene that has
23 been secured with the police tape as a barrier, whatever
24 is inside that scene, no one is allowed to go in there
25 and do anything like smoke or drink or eat.
26 A That's correct.
27 Q And if something like that were to occur, it
28 would be very unusual?
0084
01 A Yes.
02 Q And a report would be made?
03 A Certainly.
04 Q was there any such report made in this case?
05 A Not to my knowledge.
06 Q Was there any indication made to you that the
07 crime scene at 875 south Bundy was disturbed in that
08 manner behind the yellow tape in any way?
09 A No.
10 Q You indicated that it was more important to
11 get a criminalist to Rockingham Avenue than to the Bundy
12 address at one point during your testimony on
13 cross-examination.
14 Do you recall that?
15 A Yes.
16 Q Why?
17 A The Bundy location was a secured location.
18 The victims, the evidence, were secure. Nothing was
19 going anywhere.
20 At the Rockingham location, it was an
21 unsecured location. There was a vehicle that was
22 parked at that location with a possible blood stain on
23 it that we wanted analyzed. It was parked partially
24 blocking the street.
25 Again, it was unsecured and we needed it --
26 needed that possible blood stain to be analyzed first.
27 It just made sense because we had the other location
28 secured.
0085
01 So we wanted the Rockingham thing out of the
02 way and then the criminalist was to proceed on to Bundy.
03 Q Well, you indicated earlier that the
04 Rockingham address was not a crime scene.
05 A It was not --
06 Q And no crime scene log was generated for it
07 because it was not a crime scene.
08 Can you explain that?
09 A When I was at the location, it was not a crime
10 scene. The criminalist -- when I was there with the
11 criminalist that was requested was there to only test
12 the blood on the Bronco vehicle. I left before the
13 criminalist arrived.
14 Q In the 2- to 300 homicides that you've
15 investigated, sir, has it every occurred before that you
16 have left a crime scene before it was completed in the
17 processing?
18 A It seems to me there have been instances, yes.
19 Q And that when you left the crime scene in
20 previous cases before the processing was complete, you
21 intended to return?
22 A Yes.
23 Q Was that your intention when you left 875
24 south Bundy for the Rockingham address?
25 A Yes.
26 Q Did you expect to be back fairly quickly?
27 A Yes.
28 Q So when you left lieutenant Rogers at the
0086
01 875 south Bundy address -- and I believe you indicated
02 you did not intend for him to process the crime scene
03 for you -- you left him there thinking that you were
04 going to be back in a few minutes.
05 A Yes, short time.
06 MS. CLARK: I have nothing further.
07 THE COURT: Mr. Shapiro?
08 MR. SHAPIRO: Thank you very much, Your Honor.
09
10 RECROSS-EXAMINATION
11
12 BY MR. SHAPIRO:
13 Q Detective, to your knowledge does the
14 Los Angeles Police Department employ more than one
15 criminalist?
16 A Yes.
17 Q And if you wanted two criminalists at two
18 different scenes, would that be available to you?
19 A I don't know.
20 Q Did you try?
21 A Did I try?
22 Q Yes.
23 A No.
24 Q You were present at the autopsy?
25 A Yes.
26 Q You've talked to the coroner who conducted it?
27 A Yes.
28 Q You were present and directed the crime scene
0087
01 photographs to be taken.
02 A Yes.
03 Q You were present and directed the criminalist
04 in his activities.
05 A Yes.
06 Q And you later caused to be purchased a
07 stiletto knife from Ross cutlery; is that correct?
08 A No.
09 Q Did anyone from your department purchase a
10 stiletto knife from Ross cutlery?
11 A Yes.
12 Q You're aware of that knife?
13 A Oh, yes.
14 Q You've seen it?
15 A Yes.
16 Q You've shared that with the criminalist?
17 A I'm sorry, "shared it"?
18 Q have you showed it to the criminalist?
19 A I don't know if it was shown to a criminalist
20 or not.
21 Q Did you show it to the coroner?
22 A No.
23 Q Is it your opinion that this knife or one
24 substantially similar to it was the murder weapon?
25 A Would be pure conjecture with the knowledge
26 that I have in regards to that knife.
27 MS. CLARK: In that case, calls for speculation.
28 Objection.
0088
01 THE COURT: Sustained.
02 MR. SHAPIRO: Nothing further.
03 THE COURT: Ms. Clark, anything else?
04 MS. CLARK: One question, your honor, I'm sorry.
05
06 further REDIRECT EXAMINATION
07
08 BY MS. CLARK:
09 Q Sir, is it preferable to use one criminalist
10 in a case to process all the scenes related to one case?
11 A Yes.
12 Q And why is that?
13 A To maintain a certain order and custody of
14 evidence, to have one person with knowledge of more than
15 one scene, someone who is up on everything that's going
16 on with both scenes.
17 It's important for chain of custody of
18 evidence. It's important to be on the same page with
19 the criminalist, and it would be very difficult to
20 employ more than one criminalist unless it was
21 absolutely necessary.
22 Q And if you have one criminalist who processes
23 all scenes, he's going to know what's important at each
24 scene because he's seen them all and he may pick up
25 things that you haven't?
26 A Oh, yes.
27 MS. CLARK: I have nothing further.
28 THE COURT: Anything further?
0089
01 MR. SHAPIRO: This witness may be excused.
02 THE COURT: thank you very much, sir. You may
03 step down. Do not discuss your testimony with anyone
04 but the lawyers in the matter.
05 Next witness, please.
06 MS. CLARK: Yes, Your Honor.
07 The people call Detective Vannatter. Recall.
08 MR. SHAPIRO: Your Honor, I would offer to
09 stipulate that detective Vannatter's testimony during
10 the motion to suppress can be incorporated and made part
11 of the record for the preliminary hearing.
12 THE COURT: Is that agreeable, Ms. Clark?
13 MS. CLARK: Yes, it is.
14 Thank you, counsel.
15 THE COURT: Do we still need to hear from Detective
16 Vannatter?
17 MS. CLARK: we do, for just a few matters actually.
18 THE COURT: I think I've said this before.
19 You've previously been sworn and remain under
20 oath. Please have a seat in the witness stand.
21 THE WITNESS: Yes, Your Honor, and thank you.
22
23 phillip vannatter,
24 called as a witness by and on behalf of the People,
25 having been previously called and duly sworn, resumed
26 the stand and testified further as follows:
27 THE COURT: State and spell your name.
28 THE WITNESS: Phillip Vannatter. P-h-i-l-l-i-P,
0090
01 v-a-n-n-a-t-t-e-r.
02 THE COURT: Thank you.
03 You may inquire.
04
05 DIRECT EXAMINATION
06
07 BY MS. CLARK:
08 Q Sir, did you attend the autopsies of the
09 victims in this matter, Ron Goldman and Nicole Simpson?
10 A Yes, I did.
11 Q And in the course of that autopsy, sir, did
12 you observe the coroner to obtain blood from each of the
13 victims, blood samples?
14 A Yes.
15 Q Did you recover those vials from the coroner's
16 lab and return them somewhere?
17 A Yes, I did.
18 Q Those vials of blood samples that you
19 recovered from each of the victims, how were they
20 packaged when you recovered them?
21 A They were packaged in small glass vials with a
22 purple top.
23 Q Did they bear some number or description?
24 A Yes, they did.
25 Q Can you tell us what that was?
26 A Certainly. They had the victim's names and
27 the coroner case number that corresponds to their names
28 on the vial.
0091
01 Q Showing you People's 2 and 3, sir, can you
02 tell me whether the people depicted in these photographs
03 are the ones whose autopsies you attended in this
04 matter?
05 A Yes, they are, yes.
06 Q And they are?
07 A Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown. Nicole brown
08 Simpson.
09 MS. CLARK: in People's 2 and 3 respectively,
10 Your Honor.
11 THE COURT: All right.
12 BY MS. CLARK:
13 Q I'm sorry, sir.
14 You described the packaging. Did that bear a
15 number?
16 A Yes, it did.
17 Q What number was that?
18 A The coroner's case number for Mr. Goldman
19 was 945135, and the number for Nicole Brown Simpson
20 was 945136.
21 Q And that was on the packages?
22 A That was on a label on the glass vial itself.
23 Q And what did you do with those vials?
24 A I hand carried those to Scientific
25 Investigation Division, Los Angeles Police Department,
26 and handed them over to an employee there, Colin
27 Yamauchi.
28 Q What does he do at the police department, sir?
0092
01 A He's an employee of the Scientific
02 Investigation Division that works in the serology
03 department.
04 Q And on what date did you deliver those to him?
05 A That would have been the morning after the
06 autopsy. It would have been June the 15th.
07 Q Now, you've earlier testified regarding a
08 glove that was found at the south side of the location
09 of 360 north Rockingham?
10 A Yes.
11 MS. CLARK: I have a picture. I ASK it be marked
12 People's 21.
13 THE COURT: All right.
14 BY MS. CLARK:
15 Q and I ask you if this is the glove that you
16 saw on the grounds on the south side of Rockingham in
17 the position in which you saw it?
18 A Yes, it does.
19 Q Now, you indicated that -- yesterday, sir, at
20 approximately 7:30 you left the Rockingham address to
21 secure a search warrant.
22 A That's correct.
23 Q What time did you return to the Rockingham
24 address?
25 A Shortly after 11:30 in the morning.
26 Q And when you returned, did you see anyone
27 outside the gates of the Rockingham address?
28 A Yes.
0093
01 Q Who did you see?
02 A I saw Mr. Howard Weitzman and Mr. Taft,
03 Mr. Skip Taft.
04 Q And where were they, if you recall? What
05 gate?
06 A They were standing at the Rockingham gate,
07 along the north side of the gate.
08 Q And where were you when you saw them?
09 A I had just parked my car and was walking into
10 the gate, walking toward the residence.
11 Q Did you make contact with them?
12 A I spoke to Mr. Weitzman, yes, because I
13 recognized him, and he spoke to me.
14 Q After you spoke to Mr. Weitzman, what happened
15 next?
16 A I continued into the residence with the search
17 warrant, was there a short time; and I had left
18 instructions with officers, if Mr. Simpson arrived at
19 the location, to keep him from coming into the
20 residence.
21 And shortly after that period, while I was
22 inside, I looked down and I saw Mr. Simpson at the
23 location.
24 Q Did you make contact with him, sir?
25 A Yes.
26 Q When you made contact with him, did you notice
27 anything unusual about either of his hands?
28 A Not at first. When I first made contact with
0094
01 him, he had handcuffs on.
02 Q Well, what --
03 A Shortly after making contact with him, I
04 removed the handcuffs and I noticed a bandage on his
05 left hand, the left middle finger in the upper joint
06 area.
07 Q Now, at some point did you and the defendant
08 proceed downtown?
09 A Yes.
10 Q Now, when I said, "Mr. Simpson," then I said,
11 "the defendant," do you see Mr. Simpson in court today?
12 A Yes, I do.
13 Q Can you please point him out?
14 A Certainly. He's wearing the dark blue suit,
15 seated at the end of the counsel table there.
16 THE COURT: Indicating the defendant.
17 MS. CLARK: Thank you.
18 BY MS. CLARK:
19 Q And you transported him downtown?
20 A That's correct, yes.
21 Q Did anyone else accompany you downtown?
22 A Yes, another detective from Robbery Homicide
23 Division.
24 Q And did anyone else meet you downtown at the
25 same time?
26 A Yes.
27 Q Who was that?
28 A Mr. Weitzman and Mr. Taft.
0095
01 Q Once downtown, did you take -- make some
02 effort to document the condition of his left middle
03 finger?
04 A I did.
05 Q What did you do?
06 A I took him to the photo lab, photography lab
07 of the police department, and had it photographed.
08 Q Did you cause a blood sample to be taken from
09 Mr. Simpson?
10 A I did.
11 Q And did you get his consent to do so?
12 A Yes.
13 Q Were you present when that blood was taken?
14 A Yes, I was.
15 Q And was the vial given to you after it was
16 taken?
17 A Yes.
18 Q What did you do with that vial?
19 A I kept that vial in my possession and
20 hand-carried it to criminalist Dennis Fung, and turned
21 it over to him to be booked with the evidence.
22 Q And that vial was -- did you do it on the same
23 day that it was -- the blood was taken from the
24 defendant?
25 A Yes. The 13th.
26 Q Of June?
27 A That's correct.
28 MS. CLARK: Oh, may I have a moment, Your Honor?
0096
01 THE COURT: All right.
02 MS. CLARK: I have here a photograph, Your Honor.
03 Ask it be marked as People's 22.
04 THE COURT: All right.
05 (Counsel conferred.)
06 MR. SHAPIRO: Your Honor, may we approach? Or I
07 can just put it on the record.
08 THE COURT: All right.
09 MR. SHAPIRO: I have checked with the lawyers and
10 investigators from my office, and we do not believe that
11 we have received a copy of this photograph.
12 I could take a moment and check with the
13 criminalist, but I believe -- but my recollection is we
14 have not seen this photograph, and the date on this
15 photograph is June 21st of '91.
16 THE COURT: '91?
17 MR. SHAPIRO: Of '94, I'm sorry. I can't see,
18 with or without my glasses.
19
20
0097
01 MS. CLARK: May I indicate what is on the
02 photograph, your Honor?
03 MR. SHAPIRO: There are two gloves and a ruler.
04 MS. CLARK: Two gloves, each of them bearing an item
05 number that has already been related to this case.
06 What it does is depict the glove recovered
07 from the crime scene and the glove recovered from the
08 house side by side.
09 I would be delighted to provide counsel with a
10 copy of that photograph if he feels he does not have one.
11 I thought we had given him copies of all photographs.
12 This is not a crime scene photograph at all. It
13 is a lab photograph.
14 THE COURT: This is a photo that was taken at the
15 crime lab itself?
16 MS. CLARK: Yes.
17 THE COURT: Do you have a series of such photos from
18 the crime lab?
19 MS. CLARK: I don't. As far as I know, that is the
20 only one; but I don't know.
21 I thought counsel had all photographs, your
22 Honor; but I will certainly have it duplicated for him. It
23 is not a problem. It doesn't constitute any evidence he
24 has not already seen. It simply puts the two items
25 together in one picture.
26 MR. SHAPIRO: Perhaps we could use another item of
27 evidence that we have already seen for the purposes of
28 this examination at this time and give us an opportunity to
0098
01 examine this photograph.
02 THE COURT: Well, I will give you a chance to examine
03 that photograph.
04 Do you have other evidence that you can present
05 with regard to this at this point?
06 MS. CLARK: I don't know how long it takes counsel to
07 look at a picture of two gloves, but I will be glad to wait
08 until he has satisfied himself that he can match the item
09 numbers of the gloves with the item numbers on his property
10 report and the appearance of those gloves with the
11 appearance of the gloves in the photographs he has already
12 got.
13 MR. SHAPIRO: I would say it would take me time to get
14 expert witnesses from New York, from other parts of the
15 United States, to review this. I am obviously capable of
16 looking at it and seeing it is two gloves.
17 If that is the only purpose of this photograph, I
18 think detective Vannatter can identify hundreds of pictures
19 of gloves that we have. It is just ironic there is one
20 picture we don't have that they want to use for some
21 reason.
22 MS. CLARK: It is one photograph that we have that
23 shows the two gloves in one place, side by side. That's
24 all, your Honor.
25 I don't understand counsel's objection. I don't
26 see why it takes an expert to look at a picture of two
27 gloves.
28 THE COURT: Mr. Shapiro, I am not going to preclude
0099
01 Miss Clark from utilizing the photo. I take her word for
02 the fact this is a photo of apparently the gloves that we
03 have heard testimony concerning in this preliminary
04 hearing. You are entitled to a copy of it. They have
05 indicated they would provide one to you.
06 When can that be provided? Do you know?
07 MS. CLARK: Right now. I will give counsel my copy.
08 THE COURT: You have a smaller version of what he is
09 holding in his hand?
10 MS. CLARK: Yes, I do.
11 THE COURT: Okay. Let's hand that over to defense
12 counsel.
13 MR. SHAPIRO: Are there any other photographs we
14 haven't received, your Honor?
15 THE COURT: That I don't know.
16 MS. CLARK: I have just been handed a series of
17 photographs that are all crime lab photographs of the
18 gloves. I believe counsel does have them, but I will be
19 glad to give him these again and have another set made for
20 myself.
21 MR. SHAPIRO: We have inventoried each and every item
22 of evidence that has been received, and we have not
23 received those photographs.
24 MS. CLARK: That representation was made to me
25 yesterday, and other counsel for the defense indicated they
26 did indeed have what they said they didn't have; So I would
27 ask Mr. Shapiro to examine the items he has been given to
28 date again.
0100
01 THE COURT: Is that something you can do in a short
02 period of time?
03 MR. SHAPIRO: Yeah. We have them all cataloged.
04 MS. CLARK: How do we know what he has back at his
05 office, your Honor?
06 I am turning over all of these photographs that
07 were taken at the crime lab. These are my only set. And
08 ordinarily we order two sets, which would indicate to me
09 counsel has his. But in an abundance of caution, I am going
10 to turn them over again and I am going to get another set
11 for myself.
12 MR. SHAPIRO: Thank you.
13 The last time we got these, we got a bill for
14 $4,000.
15 That is very kind of you.
16 MS. CLARK: May I proceed?
17 THE COURT: Yes. Let's proceed.
18 BY MS. CLARK:
19 Q Sir, showing you what has now been marked as
20 People's 22, do you recognize what I am showing you?
21 A Yes, I do.
22 Q Now, do you see beneath each of these gloves that
23 there is an item number?
24 A I do.
25 Q What is an item number?
26 A That is an item number of a piece of evidence
27 that has been recovered and booked as evidence with our
28 crime lab.
0101
01 Q And are you familiar with the property report
02 that lists the item numbers for the evidence that was
03 recovered in this case, sir?
04 A Yes, I am.
05 Q was each of the gloves recovered, the one at the
06 875 south Bundy address and the one at the 360 Rockingham
07 address, given a separate item number?
08 A Yes, it was.
09 Q Do you recognize the item numbers shown in
10 People's 22?
11 A I do.
12 Q Can you tell us, sir, whether those are the item
13 numbers that go to each of those respective addresses for
14 each glove?
15 A Yes.
16 Item No. 9 is the glove that was recovered at 360
17 Rockingham, and item 37 is the glove recovered at 875 south
18 Bundy.
19 Q Do items also receive a second number, a
20 photograph number?
21 A They normally get what is called a "c" number,
22 and it is issued by the photography department; and then
23 the crime report D.R. number is affixed, also.
24 Q For example, in the exhibit next to you, which is
25 People's 19, in "B," "C" -- actually, all of them, you see
26 these numbers?
27 A Yes.
28 Q Those are photo numbers, sir?
0102
01 A Yes.
02 Q As opposed to item numbers?
03 A Yes.
04 MR. SHAPIRO: Your Honor, I am going to object to this
05 series of photographs being shown.
06 May we be heard at side bar?
07 THE COURT: Yes.
08 You may be heard in chambers.
09 MS. CLARK: At side bar?
10 THE COURT: Yes. There is not a side bar in this
11 courtroom.
12 MS. CLARK: Shall I take the exhibit back?
13 THE COURT: Sure. Bring the exhibit back.
14 Mr. Reporter.
15 (the following proceedings were
16 Held in chambers: )
17 THE COURT: All right. The record should reflect that
18 we are in chambers, equivalent to side bar; We have
19 Mr. Hodgman and Miss Clark, Mr. Uelmen and Mr. Shapiro, the
20 court reporter and myself.
21 MR. SHAPIRO: Yes, your Honor.
22 We are going to object as being unduly
23 prejudicial putting three photographs together that are not
24 related.
25 One is a photograph of Mr. Simpson taken on the
26 13th, of his index finger; and right next to it are the two
27 gloves.
28 I think the inference is more than clear and the
0103
01 prejudicial effect outweighs the probative value.
02 Were the three photographs to be introduced
03 individually, we have no objection to that; But to do it on
04 this board is, to me, outrageous.
05 MS. CLARK: Well, "outrageous" is hardly the term, but
06 I would remind the court we don't have a jury; This is a
07 preliminary hearing --
08 THE COURT: I am well aware of that.
09 MS. CLARK: -- Number one.
10 And number two, if counsel has no objection to
11 them individually, then he certainly cannot legally object
12 to having them all together, collectively, on one board.
13 It simply -- I don't think I have heard a legal
14 objection that would appropriately be made at a preliminary
15 hearing.
16 I don't think the court is going to be unduly
17 prejudiced by seeing three photographs in one spot as
18 opposed to having them shown singly.
19 THE COURT: I don't believe that the photos --
20 MR. SHAPIRO: May I be heard just briefly?
21 I don't believe the court is going to be
22 prejudiced at all, but there is a group of photographers
23 out there. My information is they are sending this
24 transmission worldwide to potential members of this jury,
25 if there ever should be a jury, and that by doing this,
26 there is no other purpose than to unduly influence them by
27 having this picture on the front page of some type of
28 magazine.
0104
01 THE COURT: The court was very concerned with regard
02 to photographs of the crime scene. We handled that in a
03 way I thought was appropriate for both sides.
04 I do not find that these particular photos
05 depicted in the manner that they are depicted are the same
06 nature and type as those other photos that we handled in
07 another way.
08 the mere fact that there is a picture of the hand
09 and a picture of the gloves on one board I do not feel is
10 of such a nature that we would prejudice the defendant's
11 ability to get a fair trial should at some point he go to
12 trial.
13 So, therefore, your objection is overruled.
14 Let's go back out.
15 MR. SHAPIRO: Thank you.
16 (the following proceedings were
17 Held in open court:)
18 THE COURT: All right. We are again on the record in
19 the case of people v. Simpson. The defendant is present
20 with counsel. The people are represented. The detective
21 is on the witness stand.
22 Miss Clark.
23 MS. CLARK: Yes.
24 The objection was overruled, your Honor?
25 THE COURT: That's correct.
26 MS. CLARK: Thank you.
27 Ask this series of photographs be marked as
28 People's 23.
0105
01 THE COURT: All right.
02 BY MS. CLARK:
03 Q Sir, showing you People's 23, can you tell us if
04 you recognize what is being shown here?
05 A Yes, I recognize it.
06 Q First of all, tell us what is in photograph "A."
07 A photograph "a" is a picture of Mr. Simpson's left
08 hand middle finger, at the upper knuckle, that was taken at
09 my direction in the photo lab.
10 Q Does it accurately depict the condition of that
11 knuckle as you saw it when you had the picture taken at
12 parker center?
13 A Yes.
14 Q Was there only one cut on that finger, sir?
15 A There was a smaller laceration down towards the
16 first knuckle that doesn't show up there very well. It was
17 a small laceration that ran across the finger -- across the
18 finger and down.
19 Q Now, the gloves that are shown in "B" and "C"
20 of People's 23 --
21 a Yes?
22 Q -- do you recognize those, sir?
23 A Yes.
24 Q And what are those?
25 A Those are the two gloves that were found at 875
26 south Bundy and 360 north Rockingham.
27 Q Now, the glove in item -- in photograph "B"
28 contains "item No. 9."
0106
01 You see that?
02 A Yes. I can see that.
03 Q And, as you earlier testified, that was the glove
04 that was recovered from the Rockingham address?
05 A That's correct, yes.
06 Q In photograph "C" we have "No. 102" shown as to
07 that glove.
08 A Okay.
09 Q Does that reflect a photo number or item number?
10 A That reflects a photo number.
11 Q And are the photo numbers and item numbers
12 correlated?
13 A Yes, they are; in the property report.
14 Q So that photo, No. 102, would correlate to item
15 No. 37?
16 A That's correct, yes.
17 Q Can you describe the position of the glove as
18 it is shown in photograph "b"? Is that palm up or with the
19 back of the hand up?
20 A That's the palm of the glove that is facing up.
21 Q And in photograph "c" can you tell?
22 A May I step down where I can --
23 Q Sure.
24 A Thank you.
25 That's the back portion of the glove that is
26 facing up.
27 Q And in photograph 22, are these photos palm up or
28 are they palm down?
0107
01 A These are both palm up, showing the palm of the
02 glove.
03 Q Thank you, sir.
04 Did you observe the backs of the gloves, sir --
05 the back of the hand of each glove?
06 A At what point?
07 Q At any point.
08 Have you ever observed them?
09 A I saw the gloves in their original location, and
10 I was also present when the gloves were shown to the
11 defense at scientific investigation division; so during
12 this period, yes, I have seen the back of them.
13 Q Can you tell us if they are plain on the back or
14 if there is any kind of design on the back of the hand?
15 A There appears to be a rib design on the back of
16 the gloves leading towards the back portion, or wrist
17 portion, of the gloves.
18 Q You were gesturing with lines.
19 A Straight lines.
20 ms. clark: Thank you, sir.
21 Nothing further.
22 THE COURT: Cross.
23 MR. SHAPIRO: Thank you, your Honor.
24
25 CROSS-EXAMINATION
26
27 BY MR. SHAPIRO:
28 Q Detective Vannatter, when you caused to have
0108
01 Mr. Simpson's index finger photographed, did you ask for a
02 criminalist to examine it?
03 A No, I did not.
04 Q Did you ask for a medical examiner to examine it?
05 A As it was being photographed?
06 Q Yes.
07 A No, sir.
08 Q Did you ask for a doctor to examine it?
09 A No, sir.
10 Q Did you ask for a nurse to examine it?
11 A At a later date I did, yes -- or at a later time
12 I asked for a nurse to examine it.
13 Q I am not saying the photograph. I am saying the
14 finger.
15 A The finger, yes.
16 Q So you asked a nurse to examine it?
17 A I asked a nurse after the photograph was taken.
18 Q After the photograph?
19 A Yeah.
20 Q Did you ask a doctor, a criminalist or a medical
21 examiner?
22 A No, sir, I didn't.
23 Q Did you ask anyone if they could determine how
24 recent the cut was?
25 A No, sir.
26 Q Did you ask anyone if they could determine the
27 severity of the cut?
28 A No, sir.
0109
01 Q Did you ask anyone if they could determine the
02 cause of the cut?
03 A No, sir.
04 Q Did you ask anyone to examine the hand to see if
05 there were any glass particles that may have caused the
06 cut?
07 A No, sir.
08 Q Was this photograph taken before or after
09 Mr. Simpson gave a statement to you?
10 A After.
11 Q During the statement, Mr. Simpson told you --
12 MS. CLARK: Objection. Beyond the scope and hearsay.
13 THE COURT: Sustained.
14 MR. SHAPIRO: On what grounds?
15 THE COURT: Well, it appears that it is actually both.
16 MR. SHAPIRO: Well, hearsay is admissible.
17 MS. CLARK: May we be heard, your Honor?
18 THE COURT: Yes.
19 MS. CLARK: At side bar?
20 THE COURT: Just with regard to the legality of --
21 MS. CLARK: It is also beyond the scope.
22 If counsel would like to take this on direct at
23 the conclusion of cross-examination, I have no objection;
24 but with respect to the hearsay, I would like to be heard
25 at side bar.
26 THE COURT: All right. We will discuss that at side
27 bar.
28 We are going to break with regard to the general
0110
01 proceedings, and I will see counsel in chambers with regard
02 to this objection. And we will be in recess until 1:30.
03 MR. SHAPIRO: Thank you.
04 (the following proceedings were
05 Held in chambers:)
06 THE COURT: All right. We are again on the record in
07 the case of people v. Simpson in chambers, without the
08 defendant. Both lawyers for the people are here, and
09 Mr. Uelmen and Mr. Shapiro are here for the defense.
10 Miss Clark.
11 MR. HODGMAN: I will address this one, your Honor.
12 THE COURT: Sorry.
13 MR. SHAPIRO: It's about time you did something. The
14 L.A. TIMES was getting a bit nervous about your
15 involvement.
16 MR. HODGMAN: Well, they will just have to speculate,
17 I guess.
18 THE COURT: And they will do that.
19 MR. HODGMAN: Your Honor, the nature of the objection
20 is that what counsel is calling for is hearsay evidence;
21 and pursuant to evidence code section 1220 -- that is their
22 client's statement, and they cannot be legally the
23 proponent of that statement.
24 We legally, under 1220, can introduce that
25 statement. At present we don't intend to introduce that
26 statement at the preliminary hearing.
27 THE COURT: What about Prop. 115? Has that affected
28 the ability of the defense to present what traditionally --
0111
01 and I agree with you -- is classic hearsay, the exception
02 being an admission offered against a party And,
03 traditionally, it is only offered by the prosecution and
04 not by the defense?
05 But what about Prop. 115 at a preliminary
06 hearing? Has that changed that? I mean, presumably
07 hearsay evidence is admissible.
08 MR. HODGMAN: I would submit not, your Honor; We have
09 a statement of a party opponent, and only the opposing
10 party can be the proponent of that statement.
11 We are not seeking to introduce that statement.
12 And we will do some research, if you wish, to satisfy you
13 on this issue.
14 My understanding of the law, it is not
15 admissible; it is hearsay.
16 THE COURT: Mr. Shapiro.
17 MR. UELMEN: it is conceded it is hearsay, but
18 Prop. 115 makes hearsay admissible at a preliminary hearing
19 if it is offered through the testimony of a police officer
20 with five years experience.
21 We have an officer with five years experience on
22 the stand. Hearsay is admissible.
23 THE COURT: You know, that is my general
24 understanding; and that has been my ruling in other cases
25 that nobody cares about, but -- in other cases that has
26 kind of been my ruling, and I have not seen anybody cite a
27 case to the contrary.
28 If you wish some time, we are taking our noon
0112
01 break. you know. I will certainly take the issue up again
02 at 1:30 in chambers and listen to what everybody has to
03 say.
04 (proceedings were had which were
05 transcribed in volume 11-a and
06 ordered sealed by the court.)
07 MR. UELMEN: Can we get some idea of what the
08 schedule looks like?
09 THE COURT: Yeah. Can we get some idea of the
10 schedule?
11 Ms. clark: Certainly.
12 After detective Vannatter concludes his
13 testimony, I will present the nurse who took the blood from
14 the defendant, unless you want to stipulate; and then I
15 will present Dennis Fung, and then I will bring greg
16 Matheson and then the coroner.
17 mr. hodgman: At present we have Dr. Irwin golden, who
18 is the deputy medical examiner, who performed the
19 autopsies, scheduled to testify tomorrow.
20 mr. shapiro: We should finish tomorrow, then.
21 THE COURT: Okay. That would be delightful.
22 ms. clark: It would.
23 mr. shapiro: I mean, if we really push today, I
24 think we should finish tomorrow unless you are going to
25 go into serology to any great -- are you just going into
26 blood typing?
27 Ms. clark: Enzyme, typing and ABO; but there is no
28 d.n.a.
0113
01 mr. shapiro: And that should go fairly quickly.
02 ms. clark: Yes, I would think; Neat but not gaudy.
03 THE COURT: Have a good lunch.
04 We will meet in here at 1:30, then.
05 (at 12:02 p.m., a recess was
06 Taken until 1:30 p.m.)
0114
01 THE MUNICIPAL COURT OF LOS ANGELES JUDICIAL DISTRICT
02 COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES, STATE OF CALIFORNIA
03
03
04 THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, )
04 ) no. BA097211
05 PLAINTIFF, )
05 )
06 VS. )
06 )
07 )
07 ORENTHAL JAMES SIMPSON, )
08 AKA O.J. SIMPSON, )
08 )
09 )
09 )
10 DEFENDANT. )
10 _______________________________________)
11
11
12 STATE OF CALIFORNIA )
12 ) SS
13 COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES )
13
14
14
15
16 I HEREBY CERTIFY THAT I AM AN OFFICIAL C.A.T.
17 COURT REPORTER OF THE ABOVE-ENTITLED COURT; THAT I DID
18 CORRECTLY REPORT THE PROCEEDINGS CONTAINED HEREIN; AND
19 THAT THE FOREGOING IS A TRUE AND CORRECT STATEMENT OF
20 PROCEEDINGS AND TRANSCRIPTION OF MY SAID NOTES.
21
21
22 DATED THIS 7th DAY OF July, 1994.
22
23
23
24 _____________________________________
24 ARNELLA I. SIMS, CSR #2896
25 OFFICIAL COURT REPORTER
25
26
26
27 _____________________________________
27 ROBERT GUNN, CSR #1539
28 OFFICIAL COURT REPORTER
28
0115
01
01
02
0001
01 IN THE MUNICIPAL COURT OF LOS ANGELES JUDICIAL DISTRICT
02 COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES, STATE OF CALIFORNIA
03 HON. KATHLEEN KENNEDY-POWELL, JUDGE DEPARTMENT 105
04 THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, ) NO. BA097211
04 )
05 PLAINTIFF, )
05 )
06 VS. ) VOLUME 11
06 )
07 )
07 ORENTHAL JAMES SIMPSON, )
08 AKA O.J. SIMPSON, )
08 )
09 )
09 DEFENDANT. )
10 _______________________________________)
10
11
11
12 REPORTER'S TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS
12
13 THURSDAY, JULY 7, 1994
13
14
14
15 APPEARANCES:
15
16 FOR THE PLAINTIFF: MARCIA CLARK
16 WILLIAM HODGMAN
17 DEPUTIES DISTRICT ATTORNEY
17
18
18
19 FOR THE DEFENDANT: ROBERT SHAPIRO
19 GERALD UELMEN
20 PRIVATELY RETAINED COUNSEL
20
21
21
22
22
23 SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES
23
24
24
25
25
26
26 ARNELLA I. SIMS, CSR #2896
27 ROBERT GUNN, CSR #1539
27 OFFICIAL COURT REPORTERS
28
0002
01 I N D E X
01 VOIR
02 PEOPLE'S WITNESS(ES): DIRECT CROSS REDIRECT RECROSS DIRE
02
03 PHILLIP VANNATTER 4 14 17
03
04 TOM LANGE 18
04
05 THANO PERATIS 21 23 30
05
06 DENNIS FUNG 31 61 80
06
07 GREG MATHESON 81
07
08
08
09
09
10
10
11
11 -O0O-
12
12
13
13
14
14 EXHIBITS
15
15
16 PEOPLE'S EXHIBIT(S): FOR IDENTIFICATION
16
17 4 - SERIES OF PHOTOS 60
17 (WITHDRAWN)
18
18
19
0003
01 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
02 THURSDAY, JULY 7, 1994
03 1:45 p.m.
04 -O0O-
05
06 (Proceedings were had in chambers which
07 were transcribed in Volume 11-A
08 and ordered sealed by the court.)
09
10 -o0o-
11
12 (The following proceedings were had in open court.)
13
14 THE COURT: All right.
15 We're once again on the record in the case of
16 people v. Simpson.
17 The defendant is present with counsel. The
18 people are represented.
19 Could we have the witness return to the
20 witness stand, please.
21
22 Phillip Vannatter,
23 called as a witness by and on behalf of the People,
24 having been previously called and duly sworn, resumed
25 the stand and testified further as follows:
26 THE COURT: I bet you know what I'm going to say.
27 THE WITNESS: Yes, Your Honor.
28 THE COURT: You've previously been sworn and remain
0004
01 under oath.
02 THE WITNESS: Thank you.
03 THE COURT: Please have a seat.
04 Mr. Shapiro, do you wish to withdraw your
05 last question?
06 MR. SHAPIRO: Yes, Your Honor.
07 THE COURT: All right. You may proceed.
08
09 CROSS-EXAMINATION (continued)
10
11 BY MR. SHAPIRO:
12 Q Detective Vannatter, prior to the time you
13 observed the cut on the index finger of Mr. Simpson, did
14 you have any information as to the possible source of
15 the cut?
16 MS. CLARK: Same objection.
17 THE COURT: Overruled.
18 You can answer "yes" or "no."
19 THE WITNESS: I'm trying to think about that.
20 I believe -- I don't really recall if I do or
21 not at this point -- or whether I did or not at this
22 point.
23 BY MR. SHAPIRO:
24 Q In any event, other then photographing it, you
25 took no steps to ascertain anything else regarding the
26 cut?
27 A Well, no, that's not totally true.
28 I asked the nurse that took the blood sample
0005
01 to look at and cleanse and put a Band-Aid on the wound.
02 Q Other than that, did you have anyone else
03 examine that wound for age, type of wound, the way the
04 wound was inflicted, or any other indicia that would be
05 important regarding that wound?
06 A No, sir.
07 Q Now, that wound is described as being on the
08 index finger of the left hand?
09 A It's on the middle finger of the left hand on
10 the large knuckle. The main wound is on the large
11 knuckle.
12 Q And did you compare the location of that
13 wound to a glove that was found either at Bundy or
14 Rockingham?
15 A No, sir, I didn't.
16 Q Has anybody under your direction looked at the
17 glove to see whether or not there is a slice in the
18 glove on the middle finger of the left hand that would
19 coincide with the injury Mr. Simpson suffered when you
20 observed it?
21 A Yes, I had the glove looked at.
22 Q And what conclusions have been drawn?
23 A I was informed that there was no -- no slice
24 on the glove that would correspond with that injury.
25 Q Is it your opinion, based on your
26 investigation, that the murderer was wearing gloves at
27 the time?
28 A Yes.
0006
01 Q Do you have any opinion as to how the glove
02 got to the location on Rockingham?
03 A Yes, I certainly do.
04 Q And what is that?
05 A My opinion of how the glove got to the
06 location on Rockingham?
07 Q Yes.
08 A Well, I believe at the time of the murder, the
09 person was wearing gloves. And during the struggle with
10 the man, one of the gloves was dropped at the crime
11 scene and the other glove was then transported to
12 Rockingham.
13 Q And how did it end up in the debris at
14 Rockingham, in your opinion?
15 A Well, from looking at the scene and from
16 knowing all the circumstances that surround that, I
17 believe it was dropped back there by the person that
18 transported it up to that location, doing whatever he
19 was doing behind there that created the loud thumps on
20 the wall.
21 Q And so, I would take it, you would have the
22 criminalist search that area for blood drops.
23 A Yes.
24 Q And did you have the criminalist search that
25 area for blood drops?
26 A Yes.
27 Q Were any found?
28 A Not to my knowledge.
0007
01 Q I would take it you would have the criminalist
02 check on that area to see if there were any footprints
03 with blood on them.
04 A Yes.
05 Q Did you have that done?
06 A I even looked at it myself. There was a lot
07 of debris and leaves lying on the walkway.
08 Q Were there any bloody footprints in that area?
09 A I didn't see any, sir, no.
10 Q I take it you would want to determine whether
11 or not -- prior to investigator Fuhrman going back
12 there -- whether or not anybody else walked in that
13 area.
14 Is that correct?
15 A I'm not sure I understand that. Could --
16 Q Prior to investigator Fuhrman going to that
17 area, did you make any determination as to whether
18 anyone else had walked in that area?
19 A Prior to detective Fuhrman going there?
20 Q Yes.
21 A I was not aware of the location until
22 detective Fuhrman told me about it.
23 Q Well, was there any attempt made when
24 detective Fuhrman went back there to preserve that area
25 so there would be no disturbance of any potential
26 evidence that may be recovered?
27 A Yes. I instructed the criminalist to protect
28 it, protect the piece of evidence, and protect the area
0008
01 before I left there, yes.
02 Q Was there any determination made as to
03 whether anybody had walked back there before detective
04 Fuhrman?
05 A I don't know that that could be done with the
06 type of debris that was on the walkway.
07 I would have to say no, there was no
08 determination made.
09 Q Was there any determination made as to whether
10 or not that glove could have been thrown over a fence
11 into the area?
12 A I don't know how that could be determined. I
13 don't know.
14 Q Was there any determination made as to whether
15 or not that glove could have been dropped out of a
16 bathroom window?
17 MS. CLARK: Objection. How could -- counsel is
18 asking for an impossibility. How could such a thing
19 ever be determined?
20 THE COURT: Sustained.
21 MR. SHAPIRO: May I be heard, Your Honor?
22 THE COURT: Not at this time.
23 MR. SHAPIRO: Thank you.
24 BY MR. SHAPIRO:
25 Q Was there any determination made that would
26 show any difference between the age of the linings of
27 the two gloves?
28 A Not to my knowledge. Not at this time, no.
0009
01 Q You were present during the coroner's autopsy?
02 A Yes, sir.
03 Q And you've been in contact with the
04 criminalist?
05 A Yes, sir.
06 Q And you were in charge of one of the crime
07 scenes?
08 A Yes, sir.
09 Q Which one was that?
10 A The one on Rockingham.
11 Q Did you properly secure that crime scene to
12 preserve evidence?
13 A I believe I did, yes.
14 Q Did you properly preserve the Ford Bronco to
15 preserve evidence?
16 A I attempted to. I believe I did, yes.
17 Q And how did you preserve the Ford Bronco for
18 future evidence?
19 A I had officers at the scene. I instructed
20 them to protect and preserve the items as well as the
21 Ford, and I instructed the officers to have the vehicle
22 impounded to the print shed, Los Angeles Police
23 Department print shed.
24 Q To your knowledge, were those directions
25 followed?
26 A I would hope so.
27 Q Do you know if they were or not?
28 A No, because I was not at the scene there for a
0010
01 long period of time.
02 Q Do you have any reports or have you heard
03 from any officer that coffee stains from members of the
04 media were on the Bronco after you secured the crime
05 scene?
06 A No, sir, I'm not aware of that.
07 Q Do you have any information that after you
08 secured the crime scene, the Bronco was towed to
09 Viterrelis' (sic) tow truck yard?
10 A That's a possibility. I'm not aware of that
11 either, sir.
12 Q That wouldn't be something you directed, would
13 it?
14 A Well, that could be done because the tow
15 service for West Los Angeles division, each area has a
16 separate tow service. It could have been taken there
17 before it was brought to the print shed. I didn't know
18 that.
19 Q Well, you wouldn't do that as somebody who had
20 secured evidence, to have some tow truck driver take it
21 to a tow yard, would you?
22 A Well, that's normally what happens with
23 vehicles that we impound. They're normally impounded
24 by the tow service that's in that area.
25 Q And is that a proper way of preserving
26 evidence, in your opinion?
27 A It's about the only way that we can move a
28 vehicle without driving it.
0011
01 Q Is it a proper way of preserving evidence, to
02 have an independent tow truck driver tow a car by
03 himself to an impound yard?
04 A Well, they're not independent. They're
05 O.P.G. tow services, which are our official police
06 garages that are licensed by the police commission, and
07 that is normally done from each area that you're in.
08 Each area would have its own O.P.G. service.
09 Yes, I think that's a proper way of protecting
10 it.
11 Q So as one of the lead homicide detectives in
12 the Los Angeles Police Department, you feel secure that
13 you can leave a scene, have an unknown tow truck driver
14 come, hook up a piece --
15 MS. CLARK: Objection. This is argumentative.
16 THE COURT: Sustained.
17 MR. SHAPIRO: I hadn't even finished. It gets
18 better.
19 BY MR. SHAPIRO:
20 Q You weren't aware that that happened, though?
21 A Aware that --
22 MS. CLARK: Objection; vague. What?
23 BY MR. SHAPIRO:
24 Q Okay. Tell us what happened -- to your
25 knowledge, what happened to the Ford Bronco from
26 the time you left it at the crime scene on Rockingham.
27 A I don't know, sir. I wasn't there.
28 Q Well, why don't you look at your book or your
0012
01 notes or your chronological record or talk to some of
02 your fellow detectives and see if you can answer that
03 question.
04 MS. CLARK: Well, objection, Your Honor. This
05 witness is the one who's being posed the question now.
06 If counsel wants to ask the question of
07 another witness who may have personal knowledge, he's
08 free to do so. But to direct this witness to run around
09 and talk to people and look through books is an improper
10 question.
11 THE COURT: Sustained as to the form of the
12 question.
13 MR. SHAPIRO: Your Honor, I thought he said he was
14 in charge of the investigation at Rockingham.
15 THE COURT: Do you have that kind of information
16 available in your murder book?
17 THE WITNESS: Your Honor, there should be a tow
18 record on the vehicle in the murder book, yes. A
19 vehicle report that would indicate that the vehicle was
20 towed.
21 BY MR. SHAPIRO:
22 Q You were present, you told us, at the
23 coroner's autopsy?
24 A Yes.
25 Q You've talked to the criminalist?
26 A Talked to --
27 Q Have you talked to a criminalist in this case?
28 A The -- yes, the Los Angeles Police Department
0013
01 criminalist, yes.
02 Q Have you talked to more than one criminalist
03 for the Los Angeles Police Department?
04 A Yes.
05 Q How many are involved in this case?
06 A Well, I know of three personally. Would you
07 like me to name them?
08 Q Yes, please.
09 A Well, Mrs. Kestler who is the assistant lab
10 director has assisted. Colin Yamauchi --
11 MS. CLARK: Objection; Your Honor. I think
12 counsel's question was vague and is drawing an answer
13 that indicates how vague it was.
14 If counsel could be more specific in his
15 question to detective Vannatter to indicate whether
16 he means the criminalist that goes to the crime scene,
17 does the field work, or the ones that are serologists
18 that work in the lab dealing with the analysis of the
19 physical evidence. They are two different things.
20 THE COURT: The objection is overruled.
21 Yamauchi, Kestler?
22 THE WITNESS: And Dennis Fung.
23 BY MR. SHAPIRO:
24 Q Are you aware that the Los Angeles Police
25 Department went to a location known as Ross' cutlery and
26 purchased a stiletto knife?
27 A Yes.
28 Q Was that stiletto knife, to your knowledge,
0014
01 shown or described to the coroner?
02 A Yes.
03 Q Which one? Was it shown?
04 A Shown to the coroner.
05 Q Was it shown or described to the criminalists?
06 A I don't believe so.
07 Q Do you have an opinion as to whether or not a
08 stiletto knife substantially similar to the one you
09 purchased was the murder weapon in this case?
10 A That's way outside my field of expertise. I
11 would have no answer to that.
12 MR. SHAPIRO: Thank you, nothing further.
13 THE COURT: Ms. Clark, do you have any additional
14 questions?
15 MS. CLARK: I do, Your Honor.
16
17 REDIRECT EXAMINATION
18
19 BY MS. CLARK:
20 Q Detective Vannatter, can you think of a reason
21 why you would want to show the knife purchased from Ross
22 cutlery to a criminalist?
23 A No.
24 Q It's not a knife recovered from a crime scene,
25 was it?
26 A No.
27 Q And with respect to the three people you named
28 as criminalists in this case, of the three you named,
0015
01 how many were involved in the field work which -- by
02 which, I mean, outside at crime scenes collecting
03 evidence?
04 A Only one, Dennis Fung.
05 Q Did you see any bloody shoe prints on the
06 driveway of 360 Rockingham?
07 A No.
08 Q As a matter of fact, by the -- you were at the
09 original crime scene at 875 south Bundy; is that
10 correct, sir?
11 A Yes.
12 Q And you followed, I think you indicated
13 yesterday, the blood trail that led from the body of the
14 victim -- bodies of the victims, out to the alleyway
15 behind the residence?
16 A That's correct, yes.
17 Q Were the bloody shoe prints to the right of
18 those blood drops visible the entire path next to the
19 blood drops that were found all the way to the back of
20 the residence?
21 A You could see portions of the shoe prints,
22 yes.
23 Q Were they equally dark from the beginning of
24 the trail to the end?
25 A No.
26 Q By the time you got out to the alley, could
27 you see shoe prints at all?
28 A No.
0016
01 Q Are you familiar, sir, with a report or a
02 paper with notes on it pertaining to a "459 at 874 south
03 Bundy, suspects there now"?
04 A Yes, I have some knowledge of that.
05 Q Can you tell us -- enlighten us as to what
06 that pertains to or how that came about, if you know?
07 A I can tell you what I was informed of.
08 Q Yes.
09 A I was informed by a uniformed officer -- and I
10 can't recall his name -- that night at the scene, that
11 that call was generated because the two original people
12 that found the crime scene knocked on a person's door
13 who wouldn't answer the door, and this person called the
14 police and reported that they thought there were
15 burglary suspects there.
16 Q And those two people -- were those the
17 witnesses that you located for the preliminary hearing,
18 sukru boztepe and Bettina Rasmussen?
19 A That's correct, yes.
20 Q Sir, do you have any knowledge of the nature
21 of the West L.A. impound yard in terms of its conditions
22 of security?
23 A Personal knowledge?
24 Q Yes.
25 A No.
26 Q Have you -- in general, are police impound
27 yards secure with respect to having some kind of
28 barricade or gate within which vehicles that have been
0017
01 impounded can be locked?
02 A Yes. Definitely.
03 Q To your knowledge, is that the case with every
04 police impound yard?
05 A Every one I've ever seen, yes.
06 Q And is it your information that that is the
07 same condition for the West L.A. impound yard, that that
08 is also an area that is secure with respect to cars that
09 have been impounded and placed there?
10 A I'm sure that it is, yes.
11 MS. CLARK: I have nothing further.
12 THE COURT: Mr. Shapiro.
13 MR. SHAPIRO: Yes.
14
15 RECROSS-EXAMINATION
16
17 BY MR. SHAPIRO:
18 Q Detective, were any reports generated that
19 indicate a police officer said that this 459 report was
20 a result of two people knocking on the door?
21 A Not to my knowledge, sir, no.
22 Q And that report was put out on a police radio
23 at ten minutes after 12:00; isn't that correct?
24 A That's what I was told, yes.
25 Q And to your knowledge, what time were the
26 bodies found?
27 A Ten minutes after 12:00.
28 Q That was the first finding of the bodies?
0018
01 A Yes.
02 MR. SHAPIRO: Thank you, nothing further.
03 THE COURT: Anything further, Ms. Clark?
04 MS. CLARK: I have nothing further, thank you.
05 THE COURT: Thank you.
06 THE WITNESS: Thank you, Your Honor.
07 THE COURT: You may step down.
08 Next witness.
09 MS. CLARK: The people call Thano Peratis.
10 Oh, I'm sorry, Your Honor.
11 Could I recall Detective Lange very briefly.
12 THE COURT: All right.
13 MS. CLARK: One very small matter.
14
15 Tom Lange,
16 called as a witness by and on behalf of the People,
17 having been previously called and duly sworn, resumed
18 the stand and testified further as follows:
19 THE COURT: You've previously been sworn. You
20 remain under oath.
21 State your name for the record, please.
22 THE WITNESS: Tom Lange, l-a-n-g-E.
23
24 DIRECT EXAMINATION
25
26 BY MS. CLARK:
27 Q Sir, you earlier indicated on People's 20, I
28 believe, the photograph 'A' pertaining to the rear gate
0019
01 of the location of 875 south Bundy.
02 A Yes.
03 Q And were you a little disturbed by that at the
04 time that you were testifying to it?
05 A Yes, I --
06 MR. SHAPIRO: I'm going to object to the form of
07 the question as leading and suggestive.
08 THE COURT: Sustained.
09 MS. CLARK: Okay.
10 BY MS. CLARK:
11 Q Did you, after concluding your testimony this
12 morning, approach me to say that you wanted to review
13 your notes and -- did you approach me after you
14 concluded your testimony this morning, sir?
15 A Yes.
16 Q And for what purpose did you approach me?
17 A I was not happy with my identification of
18 photograph 'A' as being the rear gate, and I believed it
19 to be the front gate.
20 Q And did you go back and ascertain whether that
21 was correct?
22 A Yes.
23 Q What was correct?
24 A Yes, I did.
25 Photograph 'A' is indeed of the front gate,
26 not the rear gate.
27 Q Photograph 'A' is the front gate of 875 south
28 Bundy?
0020
01 A That's correct.
02 Q And you were mistaken when you earlier
03 testified that it was the rear gate?
04 A That's correct.
05 MS. CLARK: I have nothing further.
06 THE COURT: Any questions?
07 MR. SHAPIRO: No, thank you.
08 THE COURT: Thank you. You may step down.
09 THE WITNESS: Thank you.
10 MS. CLARK: People call Thano Peratis.
11 On his way down, Your Honor.
12 THE COURT: Okay.
13 Face the clerk, sir, and raise your right
14 hand.
15 THE CLERK: You do solemnly swear the testimony you
16 may give in the cause now pending before this court
17 shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the
18 truth, so help you God?
19 THE WITNESS: I do.
20
21 THANO PERATIS,
22 called as a witness by and on behalf of the People,
23 having been duly sworn, was examined and testified as
24 follows:
25 THE CLERK: Please be seated.
26 THE COURT: Right up here, sir.
27 THE CLERK: State and spell your name for the
28 record.
0021
01 THE WITNESS: tHANO PERATIS. T-h-a-n-o,
02 p-e-r-a-t-i-s.
03 THE COURT: You may inquire.
04 MS. CLARK: Thank you, Your Honor.
05
06 DIRECT EXAMINATION
07
08 BY MS. CLARK:
09 Q Mr. Peratis, sir, can you tell us what you do
10 for a living?
11 A I'm a registered nurse.
12 Q You're a registered nurse?
13 A Yes, Ma'am.
14 Q And are you qualified to draw blood from
15 people?
16 A Yes.
17 Q How long have you been a registered nurse?
18 A About 40 years.
19 Q And where are you employed as a registered
20 nurse?
21 A Parker Center jail.
22 Q At Parker Center jail?
23 A (No response.)
24 Q Is that "yes"?
25 A Yes, Ma'am.
26 Q Were you so employed on the date of June
27 the 13th, 1994?
28 A Yes.
0022
01 Q Have you received some training in the
02 medically approved manner of taking blood from people in
03 a way that does not contaminate the blood?
04 A Yes.
05 Q And did you on June 13th, 1994, remove a blood
06 sample from someone you recognize today HERE in court?
07 A Yes.
08 Q Would you please point that person out.
09 A The gentleman over there.
10 Q What's he wearing right now?
11 A I didn't hear you.
12 Q What is he wearing right now, for the record?
13 A A black suit.
14 THE COURT: Are you referring to the defendant
15 here, Mr. Simpson?
16 THE WITNESS: Oh, the defendant?
17 Maybe I misunderstood you.
18 BY MS. CLARK:
19 Q Yes.
20 Who are you referring to that you took blood
21 from in this courtroom?
22 A Oh, yes. The defendant.
23 Q Thank you.
24 THE COURT: Thank you.
25 Mr. Simpson.
26 BY MS. CLARK:
27 Q And how did you do that?
28 A Oh, I put a tourniquet on his arm and cleaned
0023
01 the arm with zephiran and took a syringe with a needle
02 and withdrew the blood, then put the blood into a test
03 tube.
04 Q Was that a sterile test tube?
05 A Yes, Ma'am.
06 Q And how did you seal the test tube?
07 A The tube was sealed. It had a rubber stopper
08 on it.
09 Q It already had a rubber stopper on it?
10 A Yes.
11 Q How did you get the blood into it?
12 A Stuck the needle into it and injected.
13 Q And then you just withdrew the needle?
14 A And withdrew the needle and syringe.
15 Q And did that leave the test tube then secure
16 with the blood in it?
17 A Yes.
18 Q And what did you do with that vial of blood?
19 A I handed the tube to Detective Vannatter.
20 Q Thank you, sir.
21 MS. CLARK: I have nothing further.
22 THE COURT: Mr. Shapiro.
23 MR. SHAPIRO: Yes.
24
25 CROSS-EXAMINATION
26
27 BY MR. SHAPIRO:
28 Q Do you remember, sir, which arm you drew the
0024
01 blood from?
02 A The right arm.
03 Q Did you make any observations of any injuries
04 of Mr. Simpson at the time --
05 A I'm sorry.
06 Q Did you observe any injuries on Mr. Simpson at
07 the time you withdrew the blood?
08 A Not at that time, no.
09 Q At some time did you?
10 A After Mr. Simpson -- after I put a bandage on
11 Mr. Simpson's arm, I was asked -- I can't remember if it
12 was by Mr. Simpson or one of the detectives -- if I
13 would dress a wound on his finger.
14 Q And did you do that?
15 A Yes, sir.
16 Q Where was the wound?
17 A It was on his left -- on his left hand, on his
18 left middle finger.
19 Q Did you examine the wound?
20 A Just a cursory examination. I just looked at
21 it and I cleaned it with -- what we routinely do, and
22 then I put a dressing on it.
23 Q Did you determine the age of the wound?
24 A Not really. It was a little difficult to
25 determine the age. It looked like, oh, between 12
26 and 24 hours, but I couldn't -- I really couldn't say.
27 Q Did you ascertain the cause of the wound?
28 A No. It -- it just looked like a little,
0025
01 small cut.
02 Q In the last five years, how many times have
03 you conducted a similar type of examination for somebody
04 from the Robbery Homicide Division?
05 MS. CLARK: Objection; irrelevant.
06 THE COURT: Sustained.
07 BY MR. SHAPIRO:
08 Q How much blood did you withdraw from
09 Mr. Simpson?
10 A Approximately 8 C.C.'s.
11 Q When you say, "approximately," you did not
12 measure the amount?
13 A Well, it could have been 7.9 or it could have
14 been 8.1. I just looked at the syringe and it looked
15 at about 8 C.C.'s. I withdrew the needle from his arm.
16 Q Nobody asked you to take a precise amount of
17 blood.
18 A No.
19 Q And you did not record the amount of blood you
20 took.
21 A No. It's just routinely that's about the
22 amount I usually draw.
23 Q And you do this on a routine basis everyday?
24 Do you do this everyday in the jail, take blood?
25 A Whenever -- not for this sort of thing. It's
26 usually for alcohol, blood alcohol.
27 Q But you do take blood on a regular basis.
28 A Yes.
0026
01 Q And you take the same amount of blood?
02 A Yes.
03 Q Where did you get the tube from that you put
04 the blood into?
05 A We have a drawer in the dispensary that has
06 tubes in it, and I asked Detective Vannatter to go to
07 that drawer, take the tube out with the purple top, and
08 put Mr. Simpson's name on it and the date, and then hand
09 it to me.
10 Q Are there any lot numbers on the tubes that
11 you used?
12 A I believe there are.
13 Q Did you record the lot --
14 A No, we don't record that.
15 Q Did you record any information as to an
16 inventory regarding the tube that was used to save his
17 blood?
18 A No. It's not a routine procedure that we do.
19 Q Did you put any preservative in the tube?
20 A The preservative was already in the tube.
21 Q Did you check that before you put
22 Mr. Simpson's blood in it?
23 A Well, it's in there and it's understood that
24 it's in there. And this preservative is called
25 E.D.T.A., and I don't know what those initials mean.
26 Q Did you put those preservatives in there?
27 A No, it's in there.
28 Q Did you see someone put it in there?
0027
01 A No, they come that way.
02 Q Did you shake the blood after you put it into
03 the tube?
04 A Yes.
05 Q For how long did you shake it?
06 A Oh, about ten seconds.
07 Q How did you shake it?
08 A Just over and over like this.
09 MS. CLARK: For the record, the witness is making
10 a gesture with his hand. It was a fist with something
11 in it and turning it palm down and palm up.
12 THE COURT: All right.
13 BY MR. SHAPIRO:
14 Q Have you ever seen that blood sample again?
15 A No.
16 Q Do you know what Detective Vannatter did with
17 that blood sample?
18 A I don't know. I -- I have an idea what is
19 supposed to be done with it, but I don't know what he
20 did with it.
21 Q Did you see what he did with it?
22 A Well, he put it in an envelope.
23 Q What kind of envelope did he put it in?
24 A A gray envelope that has an affidavit on it
25 that I sign.
26 Q A gray envelope?
27 A Yes.
28 Q And it had an affidavit?
0028
01 A Yes.
02 Q What did the affidavit say?
03 A Oh, it refers to the fact that we -- I drew
04 the blood on such and such a date and I handed it to
05 detective Vannatter.
06
07
0029
01 Q Did you get a copy of that affidavit?
02 A No. That affidavit goes with the officer that
03 takes the blood.
04 Q Did you indicate on that affidavit how much blood
05 you drew?
06 A No.
07 MR. SHAPIRO: May I just have a moment, your Honor?
08 THE COURT: Yes.
09 MR. SHAPIRO: I have a document here that's "medical
10 record for persons in custody."
11 Q Is this what you referred to as an affidavit?
12 MS. CLARK: Why don't you show it to the witness.
13 THE COURT: Yes. Show it to the witness to verify
14 that is the document referred to, please.
15 MR. SHAPIRO: Yes.
16 THE WITNESS: This is called a medical treatment
17 record.
18 BY MR. SHAPIRO:
19 Q That is not the affidavit?
20 A No, sir.
21 MR. SHAPIRO: Let's see if we have the affidavit.
22 This is not what he is referring to. Do you have
23 the affidavit?
24 Q Does the affidavit remain on the envelope? Do
25 you know?
26 A it is printed on the envelope.
27 It is a gray envelope that all blood goes into.
28 There is an affidavit on it we sign.
0030
01 Q Do you recall what time you drew this blood?
02 A Yes, sir. Blood drawn at 2:30.
03 I think I have it on there as 1430.
04 Q Was there a physician on duty at the time?
05 A No, sir.
06 Q Are there any physicians at the jail?
07 A Yes.
08 MR. SHAPIRO: I have nothing further. Thank you, your
09 Honor.
10 THE COURT: Miss Clark, anything further?
11 MS. CLARK: One question, your Honor.
12 THE COURT: You always have one.
13 MS. CLARK: I know. It might be a prosecutor's last
14 word thing.
15
16 REDIRECT EXAMINATION
17
18 BY MS. CLARK:
19 Q Sir, do you have knowledge of whether those
20 vials you use to draw blood are prepackaged vials?
21 A Yes. They are prepackaged.
22 Q Are they all the same size?
23 A Yes. Those are about 10 CC vials.
24 We have some smaller ones, but we don't use them.
25 MS. CLARK: I have nothing further.
26 THE COURT: Mr. Shapiro.
27 MR. SHAPIRO: Nothing. Thank you, your Honor.
28 THE COURT: Thank you, sir. You may step down.
0031
01 Please do not discuss your testimony with
02 anyone.
03 MS. CLARK: People call Dennis Fung.
04 THE COURT: Mr. Fung, you have previously been sworn
05 and remain under oath. Please have a seat on the witness
06 stand, and state and spell your name.
07
08 dennis fung,
09 recalled as a witness by and on behalf of the People,
10 having been previously duly sworn, resumed the stand, was
11 examined and testified further as follows:
12 THE WITNESS: My name is Dennis Fung, d-e-n-n-i-s
13 F-u-n-g.
14 THE COURT: You may inquire.
15 MS. CLARK: Thank you, your Honor.
16
17 DIRECT EXAMINATION
18
19 BY MS. CLARK:
20 Q Sir, what is your job?
21 A I am a criminalist employed by the Los Angeles
22 police department.
23 Q What kind of criminalist are you?
24 A I am assigned to the firearms analysis unit right
25 now, and I am -- my job title is criminalist 3; and that is
26 one of the criminalists who is also a training officer for
27 new criminalists in crime scene processing.
28 Q How long have you been a criminalist for the
0032
01 Los Angeles police department?
02 A I have been a criminalist for almost ten years.
03 Q Can you tell us, sir, what academic degrees you
04 have achieved at this point?
05 A I have a bachelor of science degree in
06 criminalistics from the California state university at long
07 beach.
08 I have a bachelor of arts degree in chemistry
09 from the California state university at long beach.
10 And those are my degrees there.
11 Q And what kind of -- if any -- on-the-job training
12 have you had?
13 A I have received training from supervisors and
14 other criminalists in the laboratory in crime scene
15 processing.
16 I have attended seminars put on by the American
17 academy of forensic sciences and the California association
18 of criminalists regarding crime scene processing and
19 reconstruction.
20 While in college I did an internship with the
21 orange county sheriff's department, in which part of the
22 internship was to go out with their forensic specialists
23 and observe them processing crime scenes.
24 And part of my course work in college involved
25 processing of mock crime scenes.
26 Q Have you attended any seminars concerning crime
27 scene processing, sir?
28 A Yes, I have. In 1991, I attended an American
0033
01 academy of forensic sciences seminar and, in 1988, a
02 seminar put on by the California association of
03 criminalists.
04 Q Can you please explain for us what crime scene
05 processing means?
06 A Crime scene processing involves the
07 recognition and identification of potential evidence,
08 also the documentation -- documenting the location of
09 that evidence and maintaining a chain of custody for
10 that evidence and the proper collection and packaging of
11 evidence to preserve its integrity.
12 Q Are there any associations, professional
13 associations, that you are a member of, sir?
14 A Yes. I am a member of the California association
15 of criminalists. I have been a member since 1984. And I
16 am a provisional member of the association of firearm and
17 toolmark examiners since 1992.
18 Q Are you involved in the training of any other
19 criminalists more junior than yourself?
20 A Yes, I am. As I have stated before, I am one of
21 the training officers for the newer criminalists in crime
22 scene processing.
23 Q And have you done that in any other location
24 other than the one you are doing presently?
25 A I also have assisted in the training of west
26 valley bureau detectives. We put on a crime scene
27 seminar for them back in -- I think it was 1989.
28 Q Now, is it part of your training to learn how to
0034
01 properly package and preserve evidence that you have
02 collected from a crime scene?
03 A Yes, it is.
04 Q And to properly document that evidence?
05 A Yes.
06 Q Is it part of your duty to maintain the chain
07 of custody and the integrity of the evidence you
08 collect?
09 A yes.
10 Q Is there any kind of analysis work, that is,
11 blood analysis work, that you perform on the scene when you
12 are out collecting evidence?
13 A Yes. Out at the scene I will perform what is
14 known as presumptive blood tests, and that is done so
15 That -- well, there are a lot of stains that look like
16 blood; and the presumptive test is a good way to eliminate
17 the collection of stains that are not blood.
18 Q So you have performed that presumptive test for
19 blood on how many occasions, sir?
20 A I approximate I have done about 10,000
21 presumptive tests for blood.
22 Q How many crime scenes have you processed in your
23 experience?
24 A I have processed approximately 500 crime scenes.
25 Q And have you ever qualified as a crime scene
26 processing expert in a court of law?
27 A Yes, I have.
28 Q Approximately how many times?
0035
01 A I have qualified approximately 20 times.
02 Q Now, were you called out to process a crime scene
03 at approximately 5:30 a.m. on June 13, 1994?
04 A Yes, I was.
05 Q And to what location were you directed?
06 A The location was 360 north Rockingham.
07 Q You arrived there when?
08 A I arrived there at 7:10.
09 Q And when you arrived there, did you make contact
10 with a detective?
11 A Yes, I did.
12 Q Who was that?
13 A I was contacted, or I was met there, by detective
14 Vannatter.
15 Q And what occurred when you contacted him at that
16 location?
17 A Detective Vannatter briefed me on the crime
18 scene. He showed me a bloodstain on a bronco on the driver
19 door exterior handle and, also, blood drops along the
20 driveway and a glove on the south side of the house.
21 Q Directing your attention, sir, to People's 8,
22 photograph "a," first of all, can you tell us who is the
23 gentleman shown in photograph "a"?
24 A That appears to be me.
25 Q you?
26 A me, yes.
27 Q Do you remember the item that you are pointing to
28 in photograph "a"?
0036
01 A Yes, I do.
02 Q What is that?
03 A That is a -- what I believed to be a bloodstain.
04 Q And what is being shown in photograph "b"?
05 A photograph "b" is a close-up of the suspected
06 bloodstain with a scale in it.
07 Q And for what purpose do you have that ruler in
08 there?
09 A The ruler is there to indicate the size so that
10 we have something to judge how large that stain was.
11 Q What does that number 1 in there mean?
12 A The number 1 is a photo i.d. number used to
13 document the evidence.
14 Q Do the photo i.d. numbers -- excuse me --
15 correspond to item numbers in property reports that are
16 prepared by yourself?
17 A Many times they do, but often -- there are times
18 they do not.
19 Q When I say "correspond," I mean does every item
20 number have a corresponding photo number.
21 A yes -- or it should.
22 Q OKAY.
23 And sometimes the item number and the photo
24 number are the same?
25 A Yes.
26 Q But not always?
27 A That's correct.
28 Q In this particular case, with respect to the
0037
01 photo number you have indicated in "B," which is 1, for the
02 stain on the door handle, do you know what the
03 corresponding item number is?
04 A The corresponding item number is item no. 1.
05 Q What, if anything, did you do with respect to
06 that spot that you appear to be pointing to in photographs
07 "A" and "B"?
08 A The spot was tested with the presumptive test and
09 came back positive. Then it was measured and ultimately
10 documented and collected.
11 Q Now, when you say it came back positive for
12 blood, does that test tell you whether the blood is animal
13 or human?
14 A No, it does not.
15 Q Just that it is blood?
16 A Just that it is indicative of blood.
17 Q Indicative.
18 I think you indicated yesterday, sir, that it
19 could be two other things, three other things. What were
20 they?
21 A The test is -- will give a false positive -- or
22 is reported to give a false positive with vegetable
23 peroxidases; and those are found in things like cabbage,
24 apple. There are a few other plantlike materials. And
25 there are also chemicals that are oxidizers known as -- an
26 example of that is permanganate or dichromate.
27 Q Now, you have performed a presumptive test for
28 blood about how many times, sir?
0038
01 A Approximately 10,000 times.
02 Q In those 10,000 times, how many of those times
03 have you seen a false positive occur, giving you the result
04 that it was blood when it was, in fact, one of those other
05 things you named that I can't even pronounce?
06 A To my knowledge, none of them.
07 Q Now, after you performed that test on the item
08 no. 1 that you have indicated on the ford bronco, did you
09 proceed to test some other blood drops?
10 A Yes, I did.
11 Q And where were those located, sir?
12 A There were other blood drops proceeding along the
13 rear of the bronco, leading up to the driveway along --
14 inside the driveway of the compound and leading towards the
15 front entrance of the house.
16 Q Showing you People's 6, directing your attention
17 specifically to photographs "D," "E" and "F," do you see
18 all of those these little pieces of paper on the driveway?
19 A Yes, I do.
20 Q Can you tell us what they are?
21 A Those are markers indicating where there were red
22 stains.
23 Q And do those markers indicate stains that you
24 tested, sir?
25 A Yes.
26 Q Now, could you -- first of all -- I meant to ask
27 you before -- with respect to that presumptive test for
28 blood, how is it performed? What do you do?
0039
01 A We -- we will wet a cotton swab with distilled
02 water, apply the wet swab to the stain so that the
03 suspected blood is absorbed onto the swab. phenolphthalein
04 is applied to the swab at that point, and I have observed a
05 slight greenish cast appear at that point.
06 The second step is to add hydrogen peroxide, and
07 a very bright pink color shows up almost immediately at
08 that point; And that would be a positive test.
09 Q When the bright pink color comes up, that means
10 it is positive for blood -- I'm sorry -- positive for an
11 indication of blood?
12 A Yes.
13 Q And you performed a test in that manner with
14 respect to the item you have indicated in photo no. 1 and
15 item 1, the spot on the door handle of the ford bronco?
16 A Yes.
17 Q How do you collect bloodstains from a crime
18 scene?
19 A Generally, stains are transferred onto a swatch
20 by first wetting the swatch with distilled water, applying
21 it to the stain so the blood is absorbed onto the swatch;
22 and at that point it is put into a plastic bag and then put
23 into a coin envelope, where it is labeled with the
24 corresponding photo i.d. number.
25 Q Now, is it also your job, sir, to package all of
26 the evidence that you collect and label it with what is
27 known as a D.R. number?
28 A Yes, it is.
0040
01 Q And did you do so in this case?
02 A Yes, I did.
03 Q Now I am going to be directing your attention to
04 items no. 1 through 8.
05 Did you prepare a report documenting what item
06 nos. 1 through 8 are in this case?
07 A Yes, I did.
08 Q Did you collect them, sir?
09 A I did; along with my assistant, criminalist
10 Mazzola.
11 Q Is that another criminalist with the Los Angeles
12 police department?
13 A Yes.
14 Q Do you usually send two criminalists to a crime
15 scene?
16 A Not always, no.
17 Q What was this criminalist doing with you on that
18 particular day?
19 A She was there to learn how to process scenes.
20 Q You were showing her how it is done?
21 A Yes.
22 Q Now, with respect to items 1 through 8, what are
23 those items, sir, as described in your report?
24 A Item 1 is a cloth swatch used to transfer a red
25 stain.
26 Item 2 is a wood stick.
27 Item 3 is a marlboro cigarette butt.
28 Item 4 is another cloth swatch used to transfer a
0041
01 red stain.
02 To make it easier, items 4 through 8 are cloth
03 swatches used to transfer red stains.
04 Is that all you asked for?
05 Q That's all I asked for.
06 A Okay.
07 Q OKAY.
08 As to item 1, sir, that was the ford bronco you
09 already testified to?
10 A Yes.
11 Q With respect to items 4 through 8, those were
12 bloodstains, also?
13 A Yes.
14 Q Where were those recovered?
15 A Items 4 through 8?
16 Q Yes.
17 A Items 4 through 8 were collected within the
18 driveway of 360 north Rockingham. There was a trail
19 starting from the gate and leading up to the front door of
20 the house.
21 Q Starting from the gate, sir?
22 A The gate on, I believe, Rockingham.
23 Q Let me show you the photographs that you have
24 seen, that were previously marked as People's 8.
25 You see photograph "c" and photograph "d"?
26 A Yes.
27 Q In photograph "c," do you see a marker with the
28 number 4 on it?
0042
01 A Yes, I do.
02 Q And that is on the asphalt right behind the ford
03 bronco?
04 A Yes.
05 Q And photograph "d" appears to be of the asphalt,
06 also?
07 A Yes.
08 Q A close-up of item no. 4?
09 A Possibly, yes.
10 Q Well, sir, do you see any other markers on
11 asphalt?
12 A No.
13 Q So do you think that photograph "d" is a close-up
14 of the photograph shown in "C"?
15 A It is a good possibility.
16 Q How many cloth swatches do you have of blood
17 recovered from asphalt in your report, sir?
18 A Just one.
19 Q And is that one the item no. 4?
20 A Yes, it is.
21 Q And does "D" appear to be a close-up of a stain
22 on asphalt, sir?
23 A Yes.
24 Q May we deduce that is the close-up of item no. 4?
25 A Yes.
26 Q And what did you determine -- what test did you
27 perform on that item?
28 A Item no. 4?
0043
01 Q Yes.
02 A I did a presumptive test for blood.
03 Q And the result was?
04 A Positive.
05 Q And item No. -- so, then, that was a blood
06 Drop -- indicative of a blood drop behind the ford bronco?
07 A Yes.
08 Q Item no. 4?
09 A Yes.
10 Q And were there other blood drops leading up
11 through the driveway, towards the residence, that you
12 tested?
13 A Yes.
14 Q And were those items 5, 6, 7 and 8?
15 A Yes.
16 Q And you performed the same presumptive blood
17 test?
18 A Yes.
19 Q The result was?
20 A They all were indicative of the presence of
21 blood.
22 Q How did you record these results?
23 A The results were recorded on a crime scene
24 checklist.
25 Q That's a form you take with you to a crime scene?
26 A Yes.
27 Q And were all of those items packaged by yourself,
28 bearing the D.R. number of this case?
0044
01 A Yes.
02 I may have had some assistance from criminalist
03 Mazzola with some of these items.
04 Q Did you assure yourself the packaging was
05 properly done and all items bore the same D.R. number?
06 A Yes.
07 Q And what is the D.R. number for this case?
08 A The D.R. number for this case is 94-08-17431.
09 Q Did you assure yourself all items packaged and
10 collected by you bore that D.R. number?
11 A As far as I know, yes.
12 Q Did you collect any other item -- well, let me
13 direct your attention to item No. 9 on your property
14 report, sir.
15 A Yes.
16 Q What item is that, and where did you collect it
17 from?
18 A Item No. 9 is a brown leather glove, a
19 Right-handed one, with red stains.
20 Q Collected from where?
21 A That is collected from the south side of the
22 house.
23 Q Showing you the photographs that have been
24 previously marked as People's 9, i am going to ask you if
25 you recognize the location shown in photographs "A," "B,"
26 "C," "D."
27 A Yes. I do.
28 Q What location is that?
0045
01 A That is the south side of the house of 360 north
02 Rockingham.
03 Q And showing you the photograph that has
04 previously been marked as People's 21, do you recognize
05 that?
06 A Yes, I do.
07 Q Does that appear to be the same glove in the same
08 location as that depicted in photographs "A" through "D" --
09 and "E"?
10 A Yes.
11 Q OKAY.
12 Now, "E," that photograph "E," do you recognize
13 that one -- that photograph, sir?
14 A I haven't seen it -- well, it appears to be a
15 depiction of the item No. 9.
16 Q Did you cause that photograph to be taken or have
17 some part in setting that up?
18 A Yes. Detective Vannatter asked me to have the
19 glove photographed, and I did. I had some lab personnel do
20 that.
21 Q And it has "item No. 9" on it.
22 What does that tell you?
23 A That indicates to me that that is the same glove
24 that is depicted in People's 21.
25 Q And in the other photographs that you have
26 previously identified, "a," "b," "c" and "d"?
27 A Yes.
28 Q Did you perform some test on item No. 9, that
0046
01 glove, at the location where you found it?
02 A Yes, I did.
03 Q And what kind of test was that?
04 A I performed the presumptive test for blood on it,
05 and it came back with a positive result.
06 Q After you obtained the results on item no. 1 and
07 items 4 through 8 and item No. 9, the glove, did you
08 collect those items?
09 A Yes, I did.
10 Q And you indicated earlier you had them all
11 packaged?
12 A Yes.
13 Q And all were labeled with the D.R. number for
14 this case?
15 A Yes.
16 Q In what manner did you package the blood swatches
17 that you obtained from the location of 360 Rockingham?
18 A Initially, I put them -- put the cloth swatches
19 in plastic bags individually, then placed the plastic bags
20 into a coin envelope and labeled the envelope with a photo
21 i.d. number.
22 Q And with respect to the glove, item No. 9, how
23 did you package that?
24 A The glove in item No. 9 was packaged in a brown
25 paper bag.
26 Q Now, the photographs that I have shown you with
27 respect to the ford bronco and the driveway -- and let me
28 also show you People's 6 again.
0047
01 Now I am referring to People's 6 --
02 A Yes.
03 Q -- People's 9 --
04 A Yes.
05 Q -- And People's 8.
06 A Yes.
07 Q Do these photographs accurately depict the
08 evidence and the location in which you found them, the
09 condition in which you found them?
10 A Yes, they do.
11 Q At what time did you complete your work at the
12 Rockingham avenue address?
13 A We completed the collection and documentation at
14 approximately 10 o'clock.
15 Q And where did you go after that?
16 A At that point we proceeded on to -- I forgot the
17 address -- we proceeded on to 875 south Bundy.
18 Q And what time did you arrive there?
19 A We arrived there at 10:15.
20 Q Did you meet with a detective at that location,
21 sir?
22 A Yes, I did.
23 Q Who?
24 A I was met there by the officer in charge of the
25 scene, detective Lange.
26 Q Did you talk to him when you got there?
27 A Yes, I did.
28 Q Did he tell you something?
0048
01 A Yes. He told me items of evidence he wanted me
02 to collect, and he showed to me a blood trail and some shoe
03 prints which appeared to be bloody shoe prints.
04 Q Did he ask you to do something with them?
05 A He asked that I photograph them and measure their
06 locations.
07 Q And did you prepare a report of what you did with
08 respect to the evidence you recovered at the scene at 875
09 south Bundy?
10 A Yes. I did prepare a property report.
11 Q Now, did you have any interaction with the bodies
12 of any of the victims at the crime scene?
13 A I briefly saw them being removed, but no.
14 Q Is it part of your job to have any contact with
15 the bodies of victims when you go to crime scenes to
16 process them?
17 A Under certain circumstances I may, but the bodies
18 are under the jurisdiction of the coroner's office.
19 Q Now, sir, did you recover -- did you recover a
20 glove from the location of 875 south Bundy?
21 A Yes, I did.
22 Q Showing you the photograph that has been
23 previously marked as People's 12, can you tell me if you
24 recognize what is shown there?
25 A Yes. In the photograph marked People's 12, the
26 brown glove is depicted along with a photo i.d. number 102.
27 Q And that photo i.d. number 102 corresponds to
28 what items, sir?
0049
01 A Photo i.d. No. 102 corresponds to item No. 37.
02 Q Did you prepare a report concerning any analysis
03 you may have performed on that item?
04 A I did no -- i did not do an analysis of the glove
05 at the scene.
06 Q You did not?
07 A No.
08 Q Why not?
09 A It was not necessary at -- for the investigative
10 process at that time.
11 Q Directing your attention, sir, to the photograph
12 that has been previously marked People's 11, can you tell
13 us what is depicted there?
14 A The photograph marked People's 11 depicts a dark
15 blue watch cap, and next to it is a marker with the number
16 103.
17 Q And that corresponds to what item number, sir?
18 A That corresponds to item No. 38.
19 Q And what test did you perform on that item?
20 A No test was done on the cap at that point in
21 time.
22 Q Why not?
23 A It was not necessary for the investigative
24 process at that time.
25 Q What do you mean by that?
26 A It is best to not manipulate the evidence and to
27 leave it in as much an undisturbed condition as possible so
28 that it can later be analyzed in a proper setting, back at
0050
01 the laboratory.
02 By manipulating the evidence out at the scene,
03 valuable trace evidence could be lost; so what we try to do
04 is just leave it as undisturbed as possible by packaging it
05 and bringing it back to the lab.
06 Q You try to do as little testing as you can of
07 items in order to preserve them?
08 A Yes.
09 Q And only if it is absolutely necessary do you
10 test them at the scene?
11 A Yes.
12 Q In what manner was the glove, item No. 37,
13 packaged, sir?
14 A The glove in item No. 37 was packaged in a brown
15 paper bag.
16 Q I am showing you photograph People's 10 for
17 identification.
18 Can you tell us what is in that photograph?
19 A The photograph marked People's 10 depicts an
20 envelope with red stains on it, and next to it is a card
21 marked "104."
22 Q And that corresponds to item number?
23 A That corresponds to item No. 39.
24 Q And that is another item of evidence you
25 collected?
26 A Yes, it is.
27 Q In what manner did you package that?
28 A That also was placed into a brown paper bag.
0051
01 Q Showing you People's 14, if you can, sir, does
02 that depict all three items -- the blue knit cap, the glove
03 and the envelope -- as you found them?
04 A Yes.
05 Q And the items you have just described in photo
06 i.d. 102, 103, 104, as depicted in People's 10, 11, 12 and
07 14, are those all shown in the manner in which you found
08 them and the condition in which you found them at the crime
09 scene?
10 A Yes.
11 Q With respect to all of those items, sir, did you
12 take them and package them with the -- bearing the D.R.
13 number for this case?
14 A Yes, I did.
15 Q Showing you People's 15 for identification --
16 a Yes. Photograph marked People's 15 depicts a
17 large red stain, and next to it is a card marked "107."
18 Q -- Were you directed to preserve, photograph and
19 test bloody shoe prints at that scene?
20 A Yes, I was.
21 Q Do you see one of them in that photograph,
22 People's 15?
23 A Yes, I do.
24 Q And where is it, sir? Can you point it out,
25 please?
26 A It appears on the first step, and it is to the
27 right -- top right corner of the photograph.
28 Q If you could show the court.
0052
01 THE COURT: Are you referring to right here in this
02 area?
03 THE WITNESS: Yes.
04 BY MS. CLARK:
05 Q And what did you do to preserve those particular
06 shoe prints, those bloody shoe prints?
07 A The shoe prints were photographed in double
08 scale, and I did take a sample of -- a sample from two of
09 the shoe prints.
10 Q a blood sample?
11 A It was --
12 Q What appeared to be.
13 A Yes.
14 Q YES.
15 Now, were you also requested to photograph and
16 test a trail of blood drops at that location?
17 A Yes, I was.
18 Q Showing you People's 19 and 20, sir, can you tell
19 me if you recognize these photographs?
20 A Yes, I do.
21 Q And can you tell us, first of all, with respect
22 to People's 19 --
23 A People's 19 depicts -- depicts four of the red
24 stains along the north path along the house at 870 Bundy --
25 875 Bundy.
26 Q Were there some bloody shoe prints at some point
27 to the right of those blood drops?
28 A Yes, there were.
0053
01 Q Now, the numbers that are shown in photographs
02 "b," "c," "d," "e," "f" and "g," 112 through 115, are those
03 photo i.d. numbers?
04 A Yes, they are.
05 Q Do they correspond to item numbers?
06 A Yes, they do.
07 Q What item numbers do they correspond to?
08 A They correspond to item nos. 47 through 50.
09 Q So 47 would be photo i.d. no. 112?
10 A Yes.
11 Q And then 49 would be -- item 49 would be photo
12 i.d. no. 114?
13 A Yes.
14 Q And 114 is shown close up in photograph "e"?
15 A Yes, it is.
16 Q And is it shown in perspective in photograph "d"?
17 A Yes, it is.
18 Q And do you recall -- do you have an independent
19 recollection of how that location looked -- the location
20 shown in photograph "d"?
21 A Somewhat.
22 Q Were those stairs leading back to an alley, sir?
23 A Yes, they were.
24 Q Did you perform some kind of test on item 49
25 while you were at 875 south Bundy?
26 A Yes, I did.
27 Q And what about item nos. 47, 48, 50 and 52?
28 A Yes. I did presumptive tests on those stains.
0054
01 Q Now, the item numbers I have just stated, item
02 No. 47 is shown in photograph -- close up in photograph
03 "b"?
04 A Yes.
05 Q And item No. 48 is shown close up in photograph
06 "c"?
07 A Yes.
08 Q Item No. 49 shown in close-up in photograph "e"?
09 A Yes.
10 Q Item No. 50 shown close-up in photograph "g"?
11 A Yes.
12 Q Now, does photograph "f" show the blood drop in
13 photograph "g" in perspective for its general location?
14 A Let me take a closer look.
15 Q YES.
16 A Yes, it does.
17 Q And the gate shown in photograph "f," is that the
18 rear gate leading out to the alley?
19 A Yes, it is.
20 Q Showing you People's 20, sir, with respect to
21 photograph "c," do you see photo i.d. no. 117?
22 A Yes.
23 Q And that corresponds to what item number?
24 A That corresponds to item no. 52.
25 Q And is that close-up shown in perspective in
26 photograph "b"?
27 A Yes, it is.
28 Q Where is the location that the item shown in
0055
01 photo i.d. no. 117 was found?
02 A That is on the driveway on the alley behind the
03 house.
04 Q The driveway to the rear of the residence?
05 A Yes.
06 Q Is that the wheel of a car you see at the left
07 side of the photograph as we face it in photograph "b"?
08 A Yes.
09 Q And is that the alley running behind the house
10 that we see at the upper left-hand corner of photograph "b"
11 as we face it?
12 A Yes.
13 Q And it was on that driveway that item no. 117 was
14 found?
15 A Yes.
16 Q I'm sorry; Photo i.d. no. 117 was found?
17 A Yes.
18 Q And that is item no. 52?
19 A Yes, it is.
20 Q With respect to each of those photo i.d. and item
21 numbers discussed, did you perform a test?
22 A Yes.
23 Q What kind of test?
24 A The presumptive test for blood.
25 Q And what was the result with respect to all of
26 those item numbers?
27 A They were positive, indicating the presence of
28 blood.
0056
01 THE COURT: All right, Miss Clark. I am going to
02 interrupt you at this point. It is 3 o'clock, and we are
03 going to take our 15-minute recess.
04 (recess taken.)
05
06
07
08
0057
01 (Proceedings were had in chambers, which
02 were transcribed in Volume 11-B,
03 and ordered sealed by the court.)
04
05 -o0o-
06
07 (Proceedings resumed in open court at 3:26 p.m.)
08
09 THE COURT: All right.
10 We're once again on the record in the case of
11 People versus Simpson.
12 The defendant is present with counsel.
13 The people are represented.
14 Mr. Fung is on the witness stand.
15 I remind you that you remain under oath.
16 Ms. Clark.
17 MS. CLARK: Thank you, Your Honor.
18
19 DIRECT EXAMINATION (CONTINUED)
20
21 BY MS. CLARK:
22 Q We were talking about what appeared to be
23 bloody shoe prints.
24 A Right.
25 Q On People's 19, I see on photograph 'D' on the
26 steps there are letters 'A-G', '-H', '-I', '-J' through
27 '-O', it appears, on the landing.
28 A Through 'AO', yes.
0058
01 Q Each of those letters that I just said are
02 proceeded by an 'A'; correct?
03 A Yes.
04 Q And what do those letters on that photograph
05 'D' document?
06 A Those document shoe prints which were on --
07 which appeared on the steps.
08 Q And did you sample three of those shoe prints
09 as representative samples of them in order to determine
10 whether or not they were indicative of blood?
11 A I did various shoe prints along the trail. I
12 don't recall which ones I did, though, but as far as --
13 Q Let me ask you this, sir.
14 Items 55, 56, and photo I.D. numbers 'D' and
15 'F', letters 'D' and 'F' --
16 A Yes.
17 Q -- Were those among the bloody shoe prints
18 that you sampled with the presumptive test for blood?
19 A Yes, they were.
20 Q And what result did you obtain?
21 A Those were positive for -- or indicative of
22 the presence of blood.
23 Q Now, I don't see any letters marked in
24 photograph 'F.' I see a number marker at the top of
25 the landing right by the gate, but I don't see any
26 letters.
27 A That is correct.
28 Q Why is that?
0059
01 A The shoe prints got lighter and lighter as
02 they went to the west of the location, so as they got to
03 that point, they were not visible anymore -- any longer.
04 Q Then with respect to each of the item numbers
05 and letters that we have discussed today, did you place
06 a D.R. number for this case on each of them?
07 A Yes, I did.
08 Q And have them stored at the lab?
09 A Yes.
10 Q Did you receive a vial of whole blood bearing
11 the name "O.J. Simpson," and this case D.R. number --
12 A Yes --
13 Q -- From Detective Vannatter on June 13th,
14 1994?
15 A Yes, I did.
16 Q And what did you do with that, sir?
17 A I brought it back to the lab, assigned it an
18 item number, and submitted it to the criminalists for
19 serology.
20 Q I'm sorry, go ahead.
21 A And I submitted it to a criminalist in
22 serology.
23 Q And what item number did you assign to that?
24 A That was assigned item number 17.
25 Q And did you receive vials of whole blood from
26 Colin Yamauchi on June the 15th?
27 A Yes, I did.
28 Q And were those labeled as "Nicole Brown
0060
01 Simpson" and "Ronald Goldman"?
02 A Yes.
03 Q Were they -- did you package them and place
04 the item numbers on those as well?
05 A Yes, I did.
06 Q What item number did you give to the whole
07 blood taken from Nicole Brown Simpson?
08 A That was item number 59.
09 Q And for Ronald Goldman?
10 A That was item number 60.
11 Q And, again, those were placed -- those were
12 labeled with the D.R. number for this case as well?
13 A Yes, they were.
14 Q And what did you do with those items after you
15 received them from Colin Yamauchi?
16 A Once I received them, I placed them in
17 envelopes, labeled them, and booked them into S.I.D.
18 property.
19 MS. CLARK: At this time, Your Honor, I would like
20 to withdraw the exhibit that was previously marked as
21 People's 4 in lieu of the smaller photographs that were
22 used.
23 THE COURT: Any objection, Mr. Shapiro?
24 MR. SHAPIRO: No, Your Honor.
25 THE COURT: All right.
26 BY MS. CLARK:
27 Q And lastly, sir, showing you People's 22, if I
28 may, do you recognize the items shown in those
0061
01 photographs?
02 A Yes, I do.
03 Q And what are they?
04 A They appear to be the -- item number 9, the
05 right glove, and item number 57 -- or item number 37 in
06 this case --
07 Q A left glove?
08 A Yes.
09 Q And are they -- what position are they shown
10 in in that photograph?
11 A They appear to be the palm up sides.
12 Q And item number 9, is that the item you
13 recovered from 360 Rockingham on June the 13th?
14 A Yes, it is.
15 Q And item number 37, is that the item you
16 collected from 875 south Bundy on June the 13th?
17 A Yes, it is.
18 MS. CLARK: I have nothing further.
19 THE COURT: Mr. Uelmen.
20
21 CROSS-EXAMINATION
22
23 BY MR. UELMEN:
24 Q Mr. Fung, how many criminalists are employed
25 by the Los Angeles Police Department?
26 A I believe there are approximately 50.
27 Q But you were the only criminalist directly
28 responsible for the collection of evidentiary items at
0062
01 both locations in this case, that is at Rockingham and
02 at Bundy; is that correct?
03 A I was in charge of both scenes as far as the
04 evidence was concerned, yes.
05 Q All right.
06 Were there any other criminalists, other than
07 the person you were training, accompanying you?
08 A For a short time, one of the assistant lab
09 directors was at the scene.
10 Q And who was that?
11 A That was chief forensic chemist Stephen
12 Johnson.
13 Q And which scene was Mr. Johnson at?
14 A Mr. Johnson was at first the Rockingham scene
15 and then at the Bundy scene.
16 Q Did he collect any of the evidence at either
17 of those scenes?
18 A No, he did not.
19 Q His purpose was just to observe?
20 A Yes.
21 Q Are you able to tell whether a substance is
22 blood just by looking at evidence?
23 A Not 100 percent. I've had a lot of
24 experience searching for blood and collecting blood, so
25 I've got a good idea of when blood is present, but I'm
26 not infallible.
27 Q Well, do you base that impression on the
28 color?
0063
01 A That is one of the factors, yes.
02 Q What are the other factors?
03 A The color is a factor, texture, the solubility
04 of the blood, or stain at that point. There are other
05 things, but that's mainly what I go by.
06 Q Well, solubility isn't something you observe
07 by sight, is it?
08 A No, it is not.
09 Q You ascertain solubility by the testing you
10 perform?
11 A Yes.
12 Q And do you use the same standard presumptive
13 test whenever you do testing at the scene?
14 A There are other presumptive tests available to
15 me and other criminalists, but that is the -- the
16 phenolphthalein and hydrogen peroxide test is the one we
17 usually use.
18 Q All right. And is that the test you used for
19 all of the testing you did at these two locations on
20 June 13th?
21 A Yes.
22 Q Could you describe how that test is done.
23 A Um, the -- first of all, a cotton swab is wet
24 with distilled water. It is applied to the suspected
25 stain and some of the stain should transfer onto that
26 cotton swab.
27 If that occurs, then phenolphthalein is
28 applied to the swab, and I have -- through my experience
0064
01 I have noticed a slight greenish tinge appear at that
02 point.
03 After that occurs, then I will put hydrogen
04 peroxide on it, and at that point an immediate pink
05 color could show up if it is positive.
06 Q Is that referred to, then, as a two-stage
07 phenolphthalein test?
08 A Yes, it is.
09 Q All right.
10 Now, you do not perform on a routine basis,
11 then, the three-stage phenolphthalein test.
12 A I'm not -- I don't know what that is. I
13 don't know what the method is.
14 Q All right.
15 Now, the test that you're describing, you
16 mentioned, is not specific for blood.
17 That is, other substances will also give a
18 positive reaction; is that correct?
19 A Yes.
20 Q And these substances include a number of
21 vegetable substances; isn't that correct?
22 A Yes.
23 Q For example, onions?
24 A I'm not familiar with all the plant-like
25 materials that have -- that will give a false positive,
26 but I know that some do.
27 Q Well, is there any category of vegetable
28 substances that you're aware of that give positive
0065
01 substances or positive reactions?
02 A I just read it in the literature and things
03 that pop out in my mind right now are cabbage, apple, I
04 believe apricot, but I'm not --
05 Q How about garlic?
06 A I'm -- it may. I'd have to look it up in the
07 literature.
08 Q Beet root?
09 A I don't remember.
10 Q cucumber?
11 A It may be.
12 Q Horseradish?
13 A Possibly.
14 Q Lettuce?
15 A I'd have to refer to the literature.
16 Q Potato?
17 A Again, I'd have to refer to the literature.
18 Q And, of course, the presumptive test that you
19 described does not tell us whether blood is human blood,
20 does it?
21 A That is correct.
22 Q That is a determination that can only be done
23 in the laboratory?
24 A Yes.
25 Q So, of course, you didn't tell anyone that any
26 of the testing you had done at either of these locations
27 on June 13th established that any of these stains were
28 human blood, did you?
0066
01 A I did not state that.
02 Q That would mean then, of course, that we could
03 not exclude the possibility of blood having come from a
04 animal such as a dog, based on the tests that you did.
05 A That is possible.
06 Q Now, you've identified a blood stain on the
07 photograph marked as exhibit 5-F, which was numbered
08 with a tag that indicates number 8; is that correct?
09 A Yes.
10 Q Could you point to where the blood stain is on
11 that photograph?
12 A It's right here.
13 Q All right.
14 So you're pointing to the little round Mark in
15 the center of the picture?
16 A Yes.
17 Q There appears to be another reddish Mark above
18 that.
19 Do you see that?
20 A Yes.
21 Q Is that a blood stain?
22 A No. That is a drop of water.
23 Q A drop of water?
24 A Yes.
25 Q Now, looking at a blood stain, you, of course,
26 don't know the age of a particular stain. You don't
27 know how long it has been there; is that correct?
28 A In general terms, you can tell if a stain is
0067
01 fresh or it's been subjected to weathering, so you can
02 tell if it's an old stain or, you know, a fresh stain.
03 Q All right.
04 What would you define as a fresh stain?
05 A A fresh stain would have a reddish appearance
06 to it and an older stain would be brown or very dark.
07 Q And how quickly does a fresh stain become more
08 brown in appearance?
09 A That depends on several factors. The more it
10 is subjected to sunlight or heat, the faster it will
11 turn that darker color.
12 Q I see.
13 So once the sun comes out and things start
14 warming up, it becomes important for you to collect your
15 samples as quickly as possible, doesn't it?
16 A That's correct.
17 Q You are unable to ascertain in fact whether a
18 particular set of stains were all contemporaneous, that
19 is were all dropped at the same time, aren't you?
20 A They appeared to be relatively fresh stains.
21 They did not have the darker --
22 Q Well, I'm not speaking of any particular
23 stains at this point.
24 Are you able to tell just by looking at stains
25 whether they were all placed or dropped at the same
26 time?
27 A Generally, no.
28 Q Now, let's refer first to the investigation
0068
01 you did at the Rockingham address.
02 I believe the location of item number 9, the
03 glove that you recovered at Rockingham --
04 A Yes.
05 Q -- that was particularly called to your
06 attention by detective Vannatter?
07 A Yes.
08 Q And what did he ask you to particularly look
09 for in your process of recovering that glove?
10 A At one point he asked me to see if there was
11 any blood on the glove.
12 Q Anything else?
13 A That's -- he asked me to measure it and
14 preserve the evidence also.
15 Q Anything else?
16 A That's all I can remember.
17 Q All right.
18 Now, to ascertain whether there was blood on
19 the glove, you did a presumptive test.
20 A Yes.
21 Q You applied a cotton swatch to the glove?
22 A No, a cotton swab.
23 Q Cotton swab?
24 A Like a Q-tip type of thing.
25 Q All right.
26 What portion of the glove did you apply that
27 swab to?
28 A I believe the -- whatever area was facing
0069
01 upwards, I looked for a dark -- darker area than
02 appeared on the rest of the glove and applied the wet
03 swab to that portion and performed the rest of the test.
04 Q Do you recall where that portion was?
05 A No, I don't.
06 Q Was the glove lying palm up or back up?
07 A I'd have to refer to the photographs.
08 Q All right. Let's do that.
09 MR. UELMEN: I'm putting exhibit 4 up.
10 THE COURT: I'm sorry, is that 4? My note was
11 that 4 had been withdrawn.
12 MR. HODGMAN: I believe that's 9, Your Honor.
13 THE COURT: This is number 9.
14 MR. UELMEN: Number 9?
15 I'm sorry, it had two numbers on it. The
16 grand jury exhibit is 4, but it's exhibit 9 here.
17 THE COURT: Okay.
18 BY MR. UELMEN:
19 Q Have you located where you applied the swab to
20 the glove?
21 A I don't recall where exactly I applied the
22 swab to the glove.
23 Q All right.
24 Does the photo in exhibit 9-D depict the
25 position of the glove as you found it?
26 A To the best of my recollection, yes.
27 Q Now, you mentioned that one reason you don't
28 routinely do presumptive tests on all of the evidence
0070
01 that you encounter is because the manipulation of the
02 evidence may lose valuable trace evidence, I believe you
03 said.
04 A Yes.
05 Q All right. But you did manipulate the glove
06 in order to do a presumptive test; is that correct?
07 A Yes, I did.
08 Q Now, were you -- or did you attempt to locate
09 any stains or footprints in the location leading up to
10 that glove?
11 A I looked for them. However, I did not find
12 any.
13 Q Did you examine carefully for any disturbance
14 in the pattern of debris leading up to the glove?
15 A I did not notice any discernible pattern of --
16 that I could differentiate from randomness.
17 Q Well, would that assist you in ascertaining
18 whether someone had dropped the glove there or whether
19 they had thrown the glove there from some other
20 location?
21 A I don't really understand the question.
22 Q Would any disturbance in the debris pattern
23 assist you in determining whether the glove had been
24 dropped there or thrown there?
25 A In certain circumstances it might.
26 Q So it would become important, then, to
27 preserve the pattern of the debris leading up to the
28 glove, wouldn't it?
0071
01 MS. CLARK: Well, objection. That's an incomplete
02 hypothetical. It assumes that no other disturbances
03 occurred between the occurrence of dropping the glove
04 and this witness arriving at the scene.
05 THE COURT: Overruled.
06 You can answer that if you're able to.
07 THE WITNESS: Could you repeat the question?
08 BY MR. UELMEN:
09 Q Wouldn't it be important to preserve whatever
10 patterns there might be in the debris leading up to the
11 glove in order to ascertain whether it had been dropped
12 or tossed?
13 A If that was a major factor in the case, it
14 might be, yes.
15 Q And, of course, the more people traipsing back
16 to look at the glove, the more disturbance there would
17 be in the debris pattern, wouldn't there?
18 A Yes.
19 MS. CLARK: Well, objection. That assumes that
20 there is such a thing as a "debris pattern." Assumes a
21 fact not in evidence.
22 THE COURT: Overruled.
23 BY MR. UELMEN:
24 Q Now, the pattern that you referred to in the
25 pavement proceeded in the direction of the entrance to
26 the house?
27 A The pattern in the pavement?
28 Q Yes.
0072
01 THE COURT: Are you referring to the blood droplets
02 on the driveway?
03 BY MR. UELMEN:
04 Q The drops that you observed in the driveway at
05 Rockingham.
06 A Yes.
07 Q They did not proceed to the glove?
08 A No.
09 Q Now, you mentioned that you remained at the
10 Rockingham premises until 10:00 a.m.?
11 A Yes.
12 Q So you were there approximately three hours?
13
14
0073
01 A Just about, yes.
02 Q And you didn't arrive, then, at the 875 south
03 Bundy premises until 10:15 in the morning?
04 A Yes.
05 Q And that was the first time anyone began
06 collecting any evidence or swatches of blood at the
07 premises at 875 south Bundy?
08 A To my knowledge, yes.
09 Q Now, your property report simply indicates the
10 time that you arrived at the premises; is that correct?
11 A Yes.
12 Q It does not indicate the time you recovered any
13 particular item at the premises?
14 A That's correct.
15 Q So your property report for the morning of
16 June 13 at the Rockingham location just indicated 7:10
17 in the morning?
18 A That's when I arrived at the scene. Yes.
19 Q How long after you arrived did you take swatches
20 of the drops that appeared to be blood in the driveway?
21 A That occurred around 9 to 9:30 in the morning.
22 Q Did the collection of this evidence follow the
23 chronology of the numbers that you assigned to each item?
24 A Could you repeat the question?
25 Q Did your collection of these items correspond
26 to the chronology of the numbers you assigned?
27 For example, you would have collected item
28 no. 1 first and item No. 7 after item no. 6?
0074
01 A I believe so.
02 Q So you assign these numbers chronologically, as
03 you collect each item?
04 A No. I will assign numbers to the items I am
05 going to collect, measure them off and then, after
06 measuring and documenting with photography is done, I will
07 go ahead and start collecting.
08 Q So the last step is to go ahead and actually
09 collect the samples after you have assigned all the numbers
10 you intend to assign?
11 A Generally speaking, yes. That is not a hard and
12 fast rule, though.
13 Q Now, you said when you arrived or after you
14 arrived at the Bundy premises, you saw the bodies being
15 removed; is that correct?
16 A Yes.
17 Q What time were the bodies removed?
18 A Approximately 10:30, around there.
19 Q 15 minutes after you arrived?
20 A That's a rough approximation.
21 Q Now, when you collect the samples on the damp
22 swatches --
23 a Yes?
24 Q -- of the drops you suspect may be blood --
25 a Yes?
26 Q -- do you take more than one swatch of each?
27 a If the sample is large enough, I will try to
28 collect a large sample, which may be more than one or two,
0075
01 or just maybe a thread if it is not very much. It depends
02 on the size of the sample.
03 Q So if you have a larger sample, will you get two
04 or three swatches of the same sample?
05 A Usually, yes.
06 Q Did you measure the distance between the drops
07 that you located on the pavement leading to the rear of the
08 premises?
09 A I measured the drops that I collected. Yes, I
10 did.
11 Q all right.
12 Referring, then, to what has been numbered
13 112, 113, 114 and 115 on exhibit No. 19, could you tell
14 us the distance between each of those stains?
15 A Yes.
16 Q Could you tell us how far apart they were?
17 A I can give you the measurements that I have
18 taken. I am not really great at math; so I don't want to
19 do a subtraction right now.
20 Q OKAY.
21 A Photo i.d. 112, which is item 47, was collected
22 approximately 44 feet west of the west curb of Bundy and 10
23 inches north of the north wall of the condo or apartment or
24 whatever it is.
25 Q OKAY.
26 A Photo i.d. 113, which is item No. 48, was
27 recovered 56 feet west of the west curb of Bundy and 3
28 feet north of the north -- let's see -- north of the north
0076
01 curb, which probably means wall, or the side of the house.
02 Q You have "curb" in your notes?
03 A Yes, I do.
04 Q all right.
05 A Photo i.d. 114 is -- was located 86 feet west
06 of the west curb of Bundy and 1 foot 10 inches north of
07 the north wall; and item -- photo i.d. 115, which is item
08 No. 50, was recovered 38 feet 8 inches east of the west
09 edge of the rear driveway and 1 foot 10 inches north of
10 the north wall of the building.
11 Q all right.
12 Now, you are using two different reference
13 points. No. 112, 113 and 114 were measured from their
14 distance from Bundy?
15 A Yes.
16 Q And 115 was measured from its distance from
17 the driveway?
18 A Yes.
19 Q How far apart were 114 and 115?
20 A We have gone back with a forensic draftsman, and
21 that is all measured off now; but I don't have that in my
22 notes.
23 Q Now, in the photos that appear in the exhibit,
24 there appears to be a variation in the color of the spots,
25 or drops, that are numbered on that exhibit?
26 A There is a slight variation, yes.
27 Q Where do you see the variation?
28 A In photograph "e," with the marker 114, it
0077
01 appears a slightly different color from 115 in the
02 photograph.
03 Q Would that suggest to you the possibility of a
04 different age of that particular mark?
05 A I would tend to put that more on the effect of
06 photography than I would an actual difference in color.
07 Q Isn't the purpose of the photography to uniformly
08 record the appearance of the evidence that you encounter at
09 the scene?
10 A Theoretically, yes; but in practice color is
11 variable from photograph to photograph.
12 Q Well, aren't the photographers instructed to
13 photograph each item of evidence from the same angle?
14 A Generally, yes.
15 Q And use the same lighting conditions for each
16 item of evidence?
17 A Generally, yes.
18 Q Now, with respect to the vial of blood labeled
19 "O.J. simpson" that you submitted to the criminologist in
20 serology --
21 A The criminalist.
22 Q Criminalist. I'm sorry.
23 -- Who was the criminalist to whom you submitted
24 that?
25 A I believe I gave it to Colin Yamauchi.
26 Q Now, is this the same Colin Yamauchi who gave
27 you the blood samples from the victims?
28 A Yes.
0078
01 Q Why would you be giving him samples when he is
02 giving you samples of others?
03 A On June 13 I received a vial of blood with O.J.
04 Simpson's name on it from detective Vannatter.
05 Q Uh-huh.
06 A And on June 15, two days later, detective
07 Vannatter gave Colin the two samples of blood from the
08 coroner's office; and, in turn, Colin then gave me the
09 samples to book.
10 Q OKAY.
11 But Colin did not give you the sample of
12 Mr. Simpson's blood back; is that correct?
13 A He gave me back the sample from -- of
14 Mr. Simpson's blood on the same day that I gave it to him,
15 which was on June 14, 1994.
16 Q What was your purpose in giving it to him, then,
17 if he immediately gave it back to --
18 a He took an aliguot from that sample and then gave
19 me the remaining portion of the vial.
20 Q He took a what?
21 A A small sample, aliquot.
22 Q What is the word you referred to?
23 A aliquot.
24 Q You want to spell that for us?
25 A A-l-i-q-u-a-t (sic), I believe, is the spelling.
26 Q And did you record then the amount of blood in
27 the vial when you gave it to Mr. Yamauchi and the amount
28 when you got it back?
0079
01 A No, I did not.
02 Q So you don't know how much you took?
03 A No, I don't.
04 Q And you don't know how much was in the vial
05 whenever you turned it over to someone else?
06 A It appeared to be pretty much full.
07 Q And who did you turn it over to?
08 A At what point?
09 Q After you got it from Mr. Yamauchi.
10 A Once I had labeled it and assigned it an item
11 number, I then booked it into our property -- property
12 division, our S.I.D. property.
13 Q What does S.I.D. stand for?
14 A Scientific investigation division.
15 Q And is that sample then kept under refrigeration?
16 A Yes, it is.
17 Q Were all of the samples you took kept under
18 refrigeration?
19 A I booked them to be refrigerated, yes.
20 Q All the swatches you collected?
21 A Swatches I booked to be frozen.
22 Q Thank you.
23 mr.uelmen: If I could have just a moment.
24 THE COURT: Yes.
25 BY mr. uelmen:
26 Q Now, do you maintain some sort of inventory of
27 all of the items you collected?
28 A Yes, and I prepare a property report for that
0080
01 purpose.
02 Q And is the property report, then, the last
03 control you have over the exhibits?
04 A Once I book them into property, then my portion
05 of the chain of custody ends there until I may be asked to
06 go back and analyze something. Then it starts up again.
07 Q And have you been asked to go back and analyze
08 some of the items you collected?
09 A No; No real scientific analysis; just to -- I have
10 been asked to go back and describe some of the evidence a
11 little bit better for the detectives, and that's about it.
12 Q Have you encountered any situations where any
13 of the evidence you recovered was missing?
14 A I don't recall anything at this point in time,
15 no.
16 mr. uelmen: Thank you.
17 Nothing further.
18 THE COURT: Miss Clark, anything further?
19 Ms. clark: Briefly.
20
21 REDIRECT EXAMINATION
22
23 By ms. clark:
24 Q Sir, the bloodstains at the Rockingham address,
25 did they all appear to you to be fairly fresh?
26 A They appeared to be, yes.
27 Q Similar in color?
28 A Roughly, yes.
0081
01 Q And the stains at the Bundy address, did they all
02 appear to be fairly fresh?
03 A Yes.
04 Q And similar in color?
05 A Yes.
06 ms. clark: I have nothing further.
07 THE COURT: Mr. Uelmen, anything else?
08 Mr. uelmen: Nothing else.
09 THE COURT: Thank you, Mr. Fung. You are free to
10 go.
11 Do not discuss your testimony with any other
12 witness.
13 ms. clark: People call greg Matheson.
14 THE COURT: Face the clerk, please, and raise your
15 right hand.
16 THE CLERK: You do solemnly swear that the testimony
17 you are about to give in the cause now pending before this
18 court shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but
19 the truth, so help you god?
20 THE WITNESS: I do.
21
22 Greg Matheson,
23 called as a witness by and on behalf of the People, was
24 examined and testified as follows:
25 THE CLERK: Please be seated.
26 State and spell your name, for the record.
27 THE WITNESS: Gregory Matheson, g-r-e-g-o-r-y
28 m-a-t-h-e-s-o-n.
0082
01 THE COURT: Miss Clark.
02 ms. clark: thank you, your Honor.
03
04 DIRECT EXAMINATION
05
06 BY ms. clark:
07 Q Mr. Matheson, tell us what you do for a living.
08 A I am a supervising criminalist employed by the
09 city of Los Angeles, working for the Los Angeles police
10 department crime lab.
11 Q Have you received some education as part of your
12 background to achieve that employment?
13 A Yes. I did.
14 Q What is it?
15 A I have a bachelor of science degree in
16 criminalistics from California state university at long
17 beach.
18 Q Can you define criminalistics for us?
19 A Criminalistics, that is a science that is
20 involved with the collection, preservation and analysis of
21 physical evidence. We employ a lot of different natural
22 sciences towards that end.
23 Q And as a student, sir, did you begin to learn the
24 field of criminalistics by working in some fashion?
25 A Yes, I did.
26 Q What was that?
27 A Well, initially, prior to working for the
28 Los Angeles police department as a criminalist, I was a
0083
01 student worker and community service officer for the Culver
02 city police department. In that capacity I learned how a
03 department operates. I had a chance to learn something
04 about field investigations, fingerprinting, crime scene
05 photography.
06 Q Now, did you indicate how long you have been a
07 criminalist with the Los Angeles police department?
08 A No, not yet.
09 I have been a criminalist with the city of
10 Los Angeles for just over 16 years.
11 Q And of those 16 years, how much of them were
12 spent doing latent prints or serology or other --
13 a Well, as a criminalist I never have done any sort
14 of latent print work.
15 I started initially -- about my first 18 months,
16 I was assigned to the toxicology unit, to the crime lab. I
17 was then moved to an area called special testing. I was in
18 that for a little over 18 months. Then I was assigned to
19 the serology unit.
20 I have been in the serology unit in one capacity
21 or another for the last 13 years.
22 Q What is the serology unit? What does it do?
23 A The serology portion, or unit, of the
24 criminalistics laboratory is involved in the identification
25 and analysis of body fluids. Our interest is, first,
26 identifying whether or not a particular fluid or stain is a
27 fluid of interest and then, once that is identified, to be
28 able to determine the genetic markers, or the makeup, of
0084
01 that stain or fluid in an attempt to compare it back to a
02 possible source of origin.
03 Q Now, is your current position one of a
04 supervisory nature, or is it one of the rank and file, if
05 you will?
06 A Well, currently and for the last five years I
07 have been supervisor of the serology unit.
08 Q Have you ever supervised any unit other than the
09 serology unit?
10 A Yes. The first four years as supervisor was
11 strictly of the serology unit; but starting last -- I
12 believe it was last July or August, I also was placed over
13 direct supervisory control of our trace comparative unit,
14 our field unit, the forensic photographer and our chemical
15 processing unit.
16 Q What is a field unit?
17 A We have a couple of criminalists assigned to what
18 we call the field unit. These are criminalists that are
19 responsible for handling responses to daytime field calls.
20 They are also at that time either working in another unit
21 or also training in another discipline.
22 Q Now, have you taken any courses with respect to
23 your position with LAPD as a criminalist?
24 A Specifically, as far as an academic course, I
25 attended a two-week class that was offered by the f.b.i. in
26 their academy in quantico, Virginia; and it was entitled
27 "biochemical analysis of bloodstains." It was offered at
28 the academy but through the university of Virginia.
0085
01 Q And was there any training that you received
02 while on the job when you began with LAPD from other
03 criminalists?
04 A Yes; Throughout my career. You receive
05 on-the-job training from other criminalists upon entering a
06 new unit. Even though you have the basic scientific
07 background, understand the concepts and things that are
08 being presented, you always have to learn from the
09 criminalists who have been in the unit for a while the
10 exact procedures and techniques used by that particular
11 unit.
12 So yes. The first several years was involved in
13 picking up these techniques from the criminalists that had
14 been performing them for quite a while.
15 Q Now, have you received any kind of certifications
16 or become a member of any professional organizations?
17 A Yes. I am a member of two professional
18 organizations and hold two voluntary professional
19 certificates.
20 Q The professional certificates are what?
21 A One of them was initially offered by the
22 California association of criminalists, and it was a
23 certificate of professional competency in criminalistics,
24 or a general background certificate on the whole field of
25 criminalistics.
26 Approximately -- I believe it was about a year
27 and a half ago or so, the program was turned over to the
28 American board of criminalistics, which rather than being a
0086
01 state-based body is a national body, organization, whose
02 sole purpose is the certification of criminalists
03 throughout the country.
04 Q And you have some position with respect to the
05 American board of criminalists now?
06 A I received what is called diplomate status in
07 that organization -- or a general knowledge in
08 criminalistics.
09 Q And the California association of criminalists,
10 is that a professional organization?
11 A Yes, it is. It is what is called a regional
12 association of forensic scientists that, even though it is
13 based in California and the majority of members are in
14 California, has quite a few in other states and a few other
15 countries.
16 Q And how long have you been a member?
17 A I believe I joined in 1979.
18 Q Do they have certain standards for certification
19 in that organization?
20 A The standards to become certified -- yes. You
21 need to be in the field for two years plus pass a written
22 examination.
23 Q Did you have something to do with developing
24 those standards for certification, sir?
25 A Yes.
26 Q What did you have to do with them?
27 A In January of 1987, I was placed by the
28 association as the chair of what was called the
0087
01 certification committee; and it was that committee that
02 established the program that eventually became the CAC's
03 certification program.
04 As committee chair I was involved in establishing
05 the minimum standards, figuring out the processes that
06 would be used in handling the whole certification sequence
07 along with working with the criminalists, also, that were
08 assigned in making up the general test.
09 Q Have you held any executive-type positions in any
10 of the other organizations such as the American board of
11 criminalists?
12 A Yes. The American board of criminalistics, when
13 it was formed, because of my association with the
14 California association of criminalists, I was asked to be
15 part of the original formation of the ABC, or the American
16 board of criminalistics; and I held the position of
17 vice-president of that organization.
18 Q Are you familiar with an organization named the
19 California association of crime lab directors?
20 A Yes, I am.
21 Q Are you a member of that?
22 A Yes.
23 Q For about how long?
24 A It has been not quite five years, I believe.
25 Q And with respect to the California association of
26 criminalists, have you held any executive positions in that
27 organization?
28 A Yes, I have.
0088
01 Q What have you held?
02 A Well, up until may of 1994, the previous four
03 years I held board of director positions. The first year I
04 was called a regional director south, or the regional
05 director for the southern part of the state. Then I was
06 elected to president-elect position, served one year as
07 that, one year as president and last year was board
08 position of immediate past president. As of may I was off
09 the board of directors.
10 Q Do you do any teaching, sir?
11 A Occasionally, yes.
12 Q And what kind of teaching do you do?
13 A Mainly it is within the department. I teach
14 serology and basic field techniques at the homicide
15 detectives school, the sexual assault detectives school
16 and, more recently, the detective supervisors school.
17 I was also able to be involved in, I believe it
18 was, in 1987, four training sessions that were offered
19 throughout the state by the office of criminal justice
20 planning on the new protocol that was established for
21 collecting sexual assault evidence.
22 Q At the current time you are a supervising
23 criminalist?
24 A Yes, that's correct.
25 Q What are your duties, sir?
26 A Well, I have direct supervisory control of, I
27 believe it is, 19 employees at this Time and, in that role,
28 have basic administrative control or responsibility over
0089
01 the units that I mentioned earlier, assign days off, handle
02 sick reports, all sorts of administrative things that go
03 along with that.
04 In addition to those duties, I am still involved
05 in some of the day-to-day operations of the technical
06 aspects of the serology unit, which is more my specialty
07 than the other ones.
08 A regular duty of that position is I read all the
09 reports that are created by the criminalists within that
10 unit, do both a technical review of the report and check
11 for just misspellings, WORDING and that sort of thing.
12 Towards that end, I examine the report, pull all the notes
13 associated with the report, make sure that the data that is
14 presented in the report fits the raw data that was obtained
15 during the course of the analysis and then make sure that
16 the data that is included in the report is consistent with
17 the conclusions, that the conclusions could be supported by
18 that data.
19 Q You are still involved in the technical aspects
20 of things, the actual work done in the serology unit?
21 A That's correct.
22 Not to the extent I used to be; but towards that
23 end, I am also involved with confirming -- occasionally
24 confirming electrophoresis results, which is one of the
25 techniques used in the laboratory.
26 Q That is one of your functions as a supervisor --
27 to occasionally be called on to confirm results?
28 A That's correct.
0090
01 Q And in that regard, sir, in serology, is it one
02 of the functions to detect genetic markers such as abo and
03 proteins and enzymes?
04 A Yes, it is.
05 Q Can you tell us what is meant by that -- abo,
06 enzymes, proteins?
07 A Well, within -- probably, for simplicity, we will
08 talk about bloodstains. There are other body fluids the
09 unit deals with, but in somebody's blood there are what are
10 called genetic markers. These are factors that exist in
11 the blood that are acquired genetically from your parents
12 and exist in certain discreet types.
13 Probably the best example that can be given of
14 that is the abo blood-type system. That is one of the
15 genetic markers we look at. You are either type a, b or
16 type o; And that is determined by the types your parents
17 have.
18 In addition to the abo system, there are also
19 other genetic markers that are enzymes, proteins that are
20 found in the blood system; And they also exist in discreet
21 types just like I described in the abo system, an example
22 being one that goes by the name of Esterase D, esd. You
23 are either type 1 or type 2. These types are identifiable
24 in a bloodstain.
25 Once a stain is categorized, then we analyze a
26 liquid sample from a known source to see if there are
27 similarities between -- if they have the same types. If
28 they do, they could be from the same source. If there are
0091
01 differences, then that source is eliminated as a source of
02 the bloodstain.
03 Q Is that very typically what you do in that
04 serology unit? Forensically speaking, you determine
05 whether an item of evidence, say a bloodstain found at a
06 crime scene, could come from a particular person, comparing
07 the types found in the bloodstain to the type of blood
08 withdrawn from the person?
09 A That is the main thrust of the unit -- to perform
10 these analyses but not only to try to include somebody but
11 exclude somebody. If the types differ, then they are
12 excluded as being a source of that sample.
13 Q Now, you referred earlier to the method known as
14 electrophoresis.
15 A Yes.
16 Q Can you describe briefly for us what that is?
17 A Electrophoresis is a technique that is utilized
18 to determine the types of the enzymes or proteins that I
19 mentioned earlier. It is not used in the abo system but in
20 these enzymes.
21 It is, simply put, a protein or enzyme, depending
22 on the structure of it, will have a slightly different
23 charge to it; so the technique involves pouring a plate
24 that is maybe 8 inches square, something like that, with
25 agarose, which is kind of a jello-like material.
26 The samples then are placed on threads and
27 established in a certain location on the gel. Current is
28 allowed to run through it, and the enzymes or the proteins
0092
01 located in that sample are spread out throughout this gel.
02 When that is done, certain identification chemicals,
03 visualization chemicals, are placed on top of it that react
04 with the individual enzymes and allow us to see where they
05 travel to. In essence, we get a band that occurs in the
06 gel at a certain spot.
07 We always run controls on those of a known type,
08 which tell us where a band is supposed to show up for a
09 particular type. If an unknown sample matches the location
10 of those bands of a known sample, we then can assign that
11 type to the unknown sample.
12 Q So you first take a known sample and see how it
13 runs on the gel and see where it marks?
14 A Well, it is not done consecutively. It is done
15 at the same time.
16 A typical gel will have, say, 12 different
17 samples on it; and out of those 12, you may have four
18 known, or standard, samples on it. And the remaining eight
19 or nine spots are taken up with unknown samples. They are
20 all run together so you can do a direct comparison of the
21 location of the bands to each other.
22 Q Now, with the enzyme and protein testing in
23 addition to the abo testing, are you able to give smaller
24 numbers in terms of the number of people that could
25 possibly have been the origin of a bloodstain, for example?
26 A That's correct.
27 Part of the comparison involves trying to add
28 some significance to the information that we receive, An
0093
01 example being, going back to the abo blood system, if we
02 determine that a stain is abo type o, that exists in about
03 48 -- say 50 percent, or half, of the population.
04 If we just had that one test, all that would do
05 is eliminate half the population and include the other half
06 as a possible source of that blood.
07 At that point we would run some of these enzymes;
08 and with each additional marker or with each type that we
09 determine, the potential population of people that could
10 have left that stain gets smaller and smaller.
11 If we have a bloodstain that is a type o, which
12 is 50 percent of the population, and identify another
13 factor that is also 50 percent of the population, the
14 combination of those two means that now you are down to 25
15 percent, or you have cut the number in half. With each
16 additional test, that number, or possibility, gets smaller
17 and smaller.
18 Q Now, in this particular case, sir, did you
19 supervise and assist in the testing of some bloodstains and
20 blood samples?
21 A I supervised and assisted in part of it, and I
22 directly ran the tests in part of it.
23 Q In your experience, sir, does all evidence
24 received by the lab for analysis bear a D.R. number?
25 A Yes, it does.
26 Q And does each case have its own discreet d.r.
27 number in order to keep all the evidence organized in one
28 place?
0094
01 A That's correct.
02 Q Has this case been assigned D.R. No. 94-08-14731?
03 A Yes, it has.
04 Q And on June 24 were you asked to do serological
05 testing on items No. 17, 59, 60 and 49?
06 A June 24 was the date the request was made. I was
07 not around when that request was made. I actually didn't
08 find out about it until the next day and then didn't start
09 the testing until the 27th.
10 Q Now, item No. 17, is that described as the whole
11 blood of the defendant, Mr. Orenthal Simpson?
12 A Yes, it is.
13 Q And No. 59, is that described as the whole blood
14 of nicole brown Simpson?
15 A Yes, it is.
16 Q And no. 60, is that described as the whole blood
17 of ronald Goldman?
18 A Yes, it is.
19 Q And No. 49, is that described as the blood
20 recovered from the crime scene as photo i.d. no. 114?
21 A That's correct.
22 Q And showing you, sir, People's 19, photograph
23 "e," do you see the number 114 in that photograph?
24 A Yes, I do.
25 Q And does that correspond, then, to the photo
26 number of the item No. 49 that you tested in this case?
27 A That's correct.
28 Q What test did you perform with respect to item
0095
01 No. 49, first?
02 A With respect to that item, I ran a presumptive
03 test for the presence of blood to determine whether or not
04 the stain was in fact blood. Then I ran a test to
05 determine whether or not it was human in origin.
06 The additional test run at that point was the abo
07 test that I previously described and then two enzyme tests,
08 one of them that goes by the designation "group 1," which
09 includes three enzymes, and then an additional test that
10 goes by the designation of "pgm subtype."
11 Q So you subjected that to abo testing as well as
12 Electrophoresis?
13 A That's correct.
14 Q Now, with respect --
15 the court: Excuse me, Miss Clark. I think I am
16 going to interrupt at this particular point of time.
17 It is just about 4:30. We will continue with this
18 tomorrow.
19 Mr. Matheson, please come back tomorrow. Do not
20 discuss this with anyone except for the lawyers involved in
21 this matter.
22 (at 4:28 p.m., a recess was taken
23 Until Friday, July 8, 1994, at 9
24 o'clock A.m.)
0096
01 THE MUNICIPAL COURT OF LOS ANGELES JUDICIAL DISTRICT
02 COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES, STATE OF CALIFORNIA
03
03
04 THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, )
04 ) no. BA097211
05 PLAINTIFF, )
05 )
06 VS. )
06 )
07 )
07 ORENTHAL JAMES SIMPSON, )
08 AKA O.J. SIMPSON, )
08 )
09 )
09 )
10 DEFENDANT. )
10 _______________________________________)
11
11
12 STATE OF CALIFORNIA )
12 ) SS
13 COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES )
13
14
14
15
16 I HEREBY CERTIFY THAT I AM AN OFFICIAL C.A.T.
17 COURT REPORTER OF THE ABOVE-ENTITLED COURT; THAT I DID
18 CORRECTLY REPORT THE PROCEEDINGS CONTAINED HEREIN; AND
19 THAT THE FOREGOING IS A TRUE AND CORRECT STATEMENT OF
20 PROCEEDINGS AND TRANSCRIPTION OF MY SAID NOTES.
21
21
22 DATED THIS 7th DAY OF July, 1994.
22
23
23
24 _____________________________________
24 ARNELLA I. SIMS, CSR #2896
25 OFFICIAL COURT REPORTER
25
26
26
27 _____________________________________
27 ROBERT GUNN, CSR #1539
28 OFFICIAL COURT REPORTER
28
0097
01